J'\ 


% 


-^ 


Digitized  by  the  Internet  Archive 

in  2007  with  funding  from 

IVIicrosoft  Corporation 


http://www.archive.org/details/dominicanordercoOObarkrich 


THE  DOMINICAN  ORDER-^ 
AND  CONVOCATION 

A  STUDY  OF  THE  GROWTH  OF  REPRESENTATION 

IN  THE  CHURCH 

DURING  THE  THIRTEENTH  CENTURY 


BY 


ERNEST  ^ARKER,   M.A. 

FELLOW   OF   ST.    JOHn's   COLLEGE 
AND  FORMERLY   FELLOW   OF   MERTON   COLLEGE,    OXFORD 


OXFORD 

AT  THE  CLARENDON   PRESS 

1913 


^x 


ISC^C 


^3 


OXFORD   UNIVERSITY   PRESS 

LONDON  EDINBURGH  GLASGOW  NEW     YORK 

TOEONTO  MELBOURNE  BOMBAY 

HUMPHREY    MILFORD    M.A. 

PUBLISHER  TO  THE  UNIVERSITY 


^V^ 


U^>i. 


PREFACE 

This  brief  study  would  not  have  been  written  had 
it  not  been  for  M.  Bemont,  the  Editor  of  the  Revue 
Historique,  and  Honorary  Doctor  of  Letters  in  the 
University  of  Oxford.  He  is  unconscious  of  his  in- 
fluence :  it  is  none  the  less  real.  He  has  done  so 
much  to  illuminate  the  English  history  of  the  thirteenth 
century,  that  he  must  not  be  surprised  if  others  try  to 
use  the  light  he  has  shed  to  explore  new  paths. 

I  owe  a  large  debt  of  gratitude  to  my  old  pupil, 
Father  Bede  Jarrett,  of  the  Order  of  Preachers.  When 
we  were  once  discussing  together  the  development  of 
representation,  and'  I  was  urging  the  point  I  have 
urged  here,  that  the  Church  supplied  both  the  idea  of 
representation  and  its  rules  of  procedure,  he  suggested 
to  me  that  the  influence  of  his  own  Order  must  have 
been  considerable  within  the  Church,  and  he  gave  me 
my  first  knowledge  of  the  organization  of  his  Order. 
He  has  increased  my  debt  of  late  by  sending  me  some 
references  which  he  had  collected.  I  would  refer  any 
of  my  readers  who  may  be  interested  in  the  Dominican 
Order  to  Father  Jarrett's  article  in  the  Home  Counties 
Magazine  for  June  1910  on  'Friar  Confessors  of 
English  Kings ',  and  to  his  pamphlet  on  the  Dominicans 
published  by  the  Catholic  Truth  Society. 


4  ":;.;•;.       \/:;PJ^;eJ'ACE 

Mn.Aj  pt;-tJijtt5e[iTas:heeri;good  enough  to  read  this 
study,  and  to  save  me  from  some  errors  into  which 
I  had  fallen.  The  kindness  of  the  author  of  the  Grey 
Friars  in  Oxford  is  all  the  greater,  as  I  have  myself 
sought  to  exalt  the  Black  Friars. 

I  should  explain  that  this  study  was  originally 
intended  for  a  brief  article.  As  I  worked  upon  it,  it 
outgrew  the  limits  of  my  original  intention,  and  ceasing 
to  be  a  brief  article  almost  grew  into  a  small  book. 
I  have  published  it  as  it  stands  (though  I  would  gladly 
have  carried  further  some  lines  of  inquiry  which  are 
here  merely  suggested),  because  other  engagements 
prevent  me  from  devoting  myself  to  the  subject  for 
some  time  to  come,  and  because  I  thought  that  such 
results  as  I  had  attained  might  possibly  be  of  some 
immediate  use  to  students  of  the  history  of  institutions. 

E.  B. 

Oxford,  March,  19 1 3. 


CONTENTS 


IV 


/ 


y 


PART    I 
THE  DOMINICAN  ORDER. 

The  Dominicans  and  the  Franciscans 

The  Dominicans  and  the  Praemonstratensians 

The  early  constitutions  of  the  Domfnicans 

Election  of  officers 

Representative  assemblies 
Characteristics  of  the  Order 
Possible  ecclesiastical  sources  of  Dominican  organiza 
tion : — 

{a)  The  Hospitallers  .         . 

(<5)  The  Templars       ... 

{c)  The  Franciscans 

Tendencies  of  religious  Orders  in  the  thirteenth  century 
Possible  secular  sources  of  Dominican  organization  : — 

{a)  Spain  ..... 

{b)  Southern  France  . 
The  representative  idea     . 
Vogue  of  the  Dominicans  in  England 
Contribution  to  English  learning 


PAGE 

9-10' 
11-12 

13-14 

14 
15-16 
17-18 


19-20 
20-21 
21-24 
24-25 

26 

27 
27-28 
28-29 

30 


PART    II 

THE  ENGLISH  CONVOCATION. 

I.     Early  history  of  provincial  synods 

Their  revival  in  the  thirteenth  century 
II.     (fl)  German  synods  in  this  century     . 
{V)  French  synod  at  Bourges  (1225)  . 
Representation  of  chapters  in  the  synods  of  Reims 
Also  in  l^arbonne  and  other  French  provinces    . 
The  Council  of  Vienne  (13 11)  .... 

A3 


31-32 
32-33 
33-34 
34-36 
37-38 
38-40 

41 


CONTENTS 


III.     General  development  of  the  English  provincial  synod 
Influences  active  in  that  development 
The  proceedings  of  1225-6        .... 
The  influence  of  taxation  on  these  proceedings  . 
The  representative  idea  a  clerical  idea 
Clerical  assemblies  in  England  from  1226  to  1240 
Rapid  development  from  1254  to  1258 
De  Montfort  and  representation 
The  activity  of  Kilwardby 
The  beginnings  of  Peckham 
The  'model'  Convocation  (1283) 
Different  aspects  of  Convocation 
Diocesan  synods 

VI.     Reasons  for  the  unique  character  of  Convocation 

Influence  of  the  clergy  on  the  growth  of  representation 
The  share  of  the  Dominicans  in  this  influence 
The  respublica  Christiana  of  Western  Europe 


IV. 


V. 


Addenda 


Index 79-83 


PAGE 

42-43 
43-44 
44-50 
50-51 
51-53 
54 

55-59 
59-61 

61-64 
64-66 
67-68 
68-69 
69-70 
70-72 
72-74 

74-75 
75-76 

77-78 


INTRODUCTORY 

The  Church  of  the  thirteenth  century  shows  a  marked 
development,  on  its  institutional  side,  of  the  principle  and 
practice  of  representation.  Three  great  Councils  of  the 
Church  are  held :  representatives  appear  in  them  all.  The 
provincial  synods  cease  to  be  composed  of  bishops  and  abbots  i^ 
only ;  representatives,  first  of  cathedral  clergy,  and  then — 
in  England  but  in  England  only — of  the  diocesan  clergy, 
enter.  The  great  Orders  of  the  Friars  are  penetrated  by 
representation.  ,  It  appears  first  in  the  Dominicans :  it  is 
copied  from  them  by  the  Franciscans.  In  the  same  century 
representation  begins  to  appear  in  the  State.  In  Spain, 
indeed,  it  has  already  appeared  in  the  last  half  of  the  twelfth 
century:  in  France  it  does  not  properly  appear,  except  in 
local  assemblies,  until  the  beginning  of  the  fourteenth.  But  in , 
England,  at  any  rate,  the  development  of  representation  in  the 
State  synchronizes  with  the  thirteenth  century  :  a  representa- 
tive parliament  begins  to  be  seen  in  the  middle  of  the  century,  . 
and  is  fully  grown  by  its  end. 

What  was  the  history  of  the  different  phases  of  this  move- 
ment, and  what  were  their  relations  to  one  another?  These 
are  questions  too  large  for  their  solution  to  be  attempted 
here.  Even  if  we  confine  ourselves  to  the  Church,  we  have 
still  a  vast  field  of  research.  But  an  account  of  the  organiza- 
tion of  the  Dominicans,  who  offer  the  most  finished  model  of 
representative  institutions,  and  a  study  of  that  development  of 
the  provincial  synod  in  England  which  led  to  the  inclusion  of 
clerical  proctors,  may  together  serve  to  elucidate  to  some 
extent  the  institutional  development  which  marks  the  thirteenth 
century.     In  the  course  of  these  inquiries  we  shall  be  led  to 


8  INTRODUCTORY 

look  into  the  sources  of  the  Dominican  organization,  and  the 
extent  of  its  influence  (if  any  influence  can  be  traced)  on  other 
contemporary  developments  of  the  same  kind  ;  and  we  shall 
have  to  ask  why  the  English  synod  developed  on  somewhat 
different  lines  from  those  of  other  countries,  and  how  far 
the  composition  and  procedure  of  that  synod  acted  as  a  model 
or  precedent  for  our  national  parliament. 


PART    I 
THE   DOMINICAN  ORDER 

History  has  not  been  unmindful  of  the  friars  ;  and  least  of 
all,  perhaps,  in  England  have  the  friars  of  the  thirteenth  cen- 
tury gone  unrecorded.  Mr.  Little  has  laboured  on  the 
records  of  the  Franciscans  with  ungrudging  love ;  and  the 
British  Society  of  Franciscan  Studjes  is  itself  an  *  order ' 
in  their  honour.  But  there  were  Black  Friars  as  well  as  Grey 
Friars  ;  a  St.  Dominic  as  well  as  a  St.  Francis.  English 
historians  have  not  been  equally  kind  to  both.^  It  is 
true  that  St.  Francis  was  indeed  a  saint,  and  St.  Dominic, 
rather  a  statesman.  Personality  attracts  the  historian  as 
much  as  the  contemporary ;  there  are  men  living  amongst  us 
about  whom  we  cannot  but  think  and  talk,  and  there  are  men 
who  have  lived  amongst  us  about  whom  we  cannot  but  think 
and  write.  The  riches  of  the  personality  of  ilpoverello  were 
more  abounding  than  those  of  the  canon  of  Osma  ;  he  who 
espoused  Poverty,  and  sang  the  Canticle  of  the  Sun,  who 
bore  on  his  body  the  wound-prints,  and  talked  with  the  birds 
as  a  brother,  was  made  of  other  stuff  than  the  founder  of  the 
Order  which  administered  the  Inquisition.^  Yet  St.  Dominic, 
like  that  other  Spaniard  who  founded  the  Jesuit  Order,  was 
a  constructive  statesman ;  and  those  who  find  in  the  study  of 
institutions  a  charm  as  great  as  in  the  study  of  personalities 
are  bound  to  look  at  his  building,  to  discover  its  materials  and 
to  trace  its  influence.  He  had  an  eye  for  the  needs  of  the 
occasion  ;  he  could  divine  the  proper  methods  for   meeting 

^  Mr.  Davis,for  instance,  in  England  under  the  Normans  and  Angevins, 
mentions  the  existence  of  the  Dominicans,  indeed,  but  devotes  all  his 
space  to  the  Franciscans.  Professor  Tout  {The  Political  History  of 
England,  1 216-1377)  devotes  more  space  to  the  Dominicans,  and  his 
sketch  of  their  history  in  England  (pp.  84-92)  is  very  useful. 

2  On  the  real  nature  of  the  relation  of  the  Dominicans  to  the  In- 
quisition (they  administered  it  reluctantly  and  often  under  compulsion) 
see  Mandonnet  in  the  Catholic  Encyclopaedia,  s.  v.  Preachers,  368  b. 


lo  DOMINICANS  AND  FRANCISCANS 

those  needs  with  success.  His  followers  said  of  him  that 
he  always  '  looked  to  the  end '  before  he  spoke ;  '  and  there- 
fore seldom  if  ever  did  he  consent  to  change  a  decision  once 
enunciated  with  due  deliberation.'  ^  He  had  besides  a  con- 
suming zeal  for  study,  which  alone  could  make  a  full  'preacher ', 
and  for  whose  sake  he  commanded  the  student  (exactly  as 
Plato  commanded  the  guardian)  to  abandon  all  possessions  or 
hope  of  possessions  which  might  distract  the  mind  from  its 
work.*  The  student  of  learning  and  its  history  must  re- 
member St.  Dominic  even  before  St.  Francis.  After  all,  the 
Franciscans  are  here,  as  they  are  in  their  organization,  the 
debtors  and  disciples  of  the  Dominicans.  Study  is  original 
and  essential  to  the  Dominicans ;  it  is  an  afterthought  with 
the  Franciscans ;  ^  and  the  reorganization  of  the  Franciscan 
Order  in  the  chapter  general  of  1339  is  on  Dominican  lines.^ 
As  for  England — and  it  is  with  England  that  we  are  mainly 
concerned — let  us  remind  ourselves  that  the  Dominicans  had 
been  at  work  here  for  some  three  years  before  the  Franciscans 
arrived.  Gilbert  of  Freynet  came  to  Oxford  in  the  autumn  of 
1 221,  and  when  the  Franciscans  arrived  at  the  end  of  ijZ24,* 
he  gave  them  a  cordial  welcome  until  they  could  house 
themselves. 

/^  '  *  It  has  been  said  that  it  is  St.  Dominic's  misfortune  to  be  always 
'  compared  with  St  Francis.     It  seems  to  me  that  he  need  not  be  afraid  of 
this  comparison.    St.  Dominic  is  ein  gereifter  Charakter^  St.  Francis  erne 
gluckliche  Natur.^ — Hauck,  Kirchengeschichte  Deutschlands,  iv.  387. 

*  Instituerunt  possessiones  non  habere^  ne  praedicatoris  offichim  impe- 
diretur  sollicitudine  terrenorum  ;  Ehrle-Denifle,  Archiv  fur  Litteratur- 
und  Kirchengeschichte^  i.  182,  n.  i.  Father  Denifle  maintains  that 
poverty  is  as  original  with  the  Dominicans  as  with  the  Franciscans 
(cf.  Hauck,  op.  cit.j  iv.  2>^y).  The  object  of  the  cult  of  poverty  is  different ; 
St.  Francis  was  poor  for  the  sake  of  his  own  salvation,  and  that  he  might 
imitate  in  his  lowliness  the  example  of  his  lowly  Master ;  St.  Dominic 
chose  poverty  that  he  might  be  the  more  free  for  study,  and  thereby  for 
preaching,  and  thereby  for  the  salvation  of  others.  Professor  Tout, 
following  the  ordinary  view,  implies  that  Dominican  poverty  is  the  result 
of  imitation  of  the  Franciscans  :  *  St.  Dominic  yielded  to  the  fascination 
of  the  Umbrian  enthusiast,   and  inculcated   on   his   Order  a  complete 

.renunciation  of  worldly  goods'  {op.  cit.,  p.  84).  It  was  in  1220  that  the 
IPrder  adopted  poverty.  From  1216  to  1220  it  had  enjoyed  revenues,  but 
[/not  possessions  ;  in  1220  it  gave  up  both  (Mandonnet,  op.  cit.). 

*  Ehrle-Denifle,  Archiv,  i.  184. 

^  Cf.  Bohmer,  Analekten  zur  Geschichte  des  Franciscus  von  Assisi, 
Regesten,  s,a.  1239,  and  Ehrle-Denifle,  Archiv^  vi.  20  sqq. 


THE   PRAEMONSTRATENSIAN   MODEL       ii 

We  have  attributed  to  St.  Dominic  constructive  statesman- 
ship. What  then  was  the  organization  which  he  constructed  ; 
what  were  the  materials  he  used ;  and  how  far  was  the 
organization  which  he  gave  to  his  Order  a  model  for  other 
builders  ?  Briefly,  we  may  say  that  St.  Dominic  founded  an 
Order  belonging  to  the  genus,  not  of '  religious  ',  but  of  clerks  ; 
that  these  clerks  belonged  to  the  species  of  clerks  called 
canons  regular ;  and  that  the  precise  variety  of  canons  regular 
imitated  by  St.  Dominic  was  the  Praemonstratensian.  The 
Dominicans  are  clerks  who  form  a  body  of  regular  canons, 
after  the  model  of  Premontr^.  Their  statutes  are  avowedly 
modelled  on  those  of  the  Praemonstratensians ;  "^  and,  like  the 
Praemonstratensians  and  other  regular  canons,  the  friars  of  the 
Order  have  the  cure  of  souls.  But  there  is  a  great  difference 
between  the  Dominican  and  the  Praemonstratensian.  The 
latter  belongs  to  a  particular  abbey,  and  has  cure  of  souls 
in  a  particular  parish.  The  Dominican  is  general  and  uni-  f 
versal.  He  belongs  to  a  house,  to  a  province,  but  far  more  to 
the  whole  Order  ;  and  he  has  a  cure  of  souls  wherever  he  may 
preach.  He  is  delocalized,  and  he  is  centralized.  He  is 
delocalized  ;  he  is  not  under  the  vow  of  stabilitas.  He  is  not 
a  member  of  a  particular  abbey,  in  charge  of  a  particular 
parish  that  is  under  that  abbey ;  he  is  essentially  a  member 
of  the  whole  Order,  who  will  preach  at  any  point  in  the  scope 
of  its  action.  He  is  centralized.  He  is  not  primarily  under 
the  control  of  a  particular  abbey ;  he  is  a  soldier  in  a  militia 
spiritualis  controlled  by  its  generalissimo.  His  daily  disci- 
pline, modelled  though  it  may  be  on  the  Praemonstratensian, 
is  consequently  different.  A  member  of  an  army  of  ubiquitous 
preachers,  he  must  not  do  the  things  that  will  hinder  preach- 
ing, and  he  must  do  all  the  things  that  will  foster  preaching. 
He  need  not  be  concerned  unduly  with  fasting  and  the  regular 
hours  of  devotion  ;  for  the  sake  jof^greaching  and  the  study 

^  Ehrle-Denifle,  Archiv,  i.  172  sqq.  Father  Denifle  quotes  the  words 
of  Humbert,  the  fifth  master  of  the  Order :  '  The  constitutions  are  largely 
taken  from  those  of  the  Praemonstratensians,  who  reformed  the  order  of 
regular  canons,  and  excelled  especially  in  the  government  of  their  order 
by  general  chapters  and  visitations.' 


12       THE   INNOVATIONS   OF   ST.    DOMINIC 


which  preaching  needs  he  may  have  dispensation.^     He  need 

not  labour  with  his  hands :  the    Dominicans  were  the  first 

Order  to  abandon  manual  work,  and  leave  it  to  conversi ;  and 

A     St.  Dominic  even  proposed  at  Bologna,  though  the  proposal 

was   not  adopted  by  the   Chapter,  that  these  laybrethren 

should  be_suprcme_jii   administration  and  temporal   things, 

^~^n  order  tha^th^Jriarsjnig     be  free  for  study  and  preaching. 

"^         jWhat  a  friar  must  do,  must  always  and  oii^dbj^^to  study 

|nL^     ,  and  to  preach ;  to  study,  that  he  may  preach,  and  to  preach 

y'^j'  ^  I  from  the  fruits  of  his  study. 

•      Thus  the  old  Praemonstratensian  model  slips  away.    There 

was  a  strong  element  of  local  feeling  in  the  model ;  there  was 

a  devotion  of  the  canon  to  the  abbey,  of  daughter-abbey  to 

mother-abbey,  of  all  to  Prdmontr^  ;  the   Dominicans  knew 

\  none  of  these  things.     There  was  an  aristocratic  flavour  in  the 

'  organization  of  the  model.     It  was  a  decentralized  aristocracy, 

except  for  the  annual  colloquy  (always  at  Premontre,  and  with 

obedience  to  the  abbot  thereof  and  his  abbey),  which  however 

only   consisted  of  abbots ;  ^    the   Dominican   government  is 

^'otherwise.     There  was,  again,  something  of  the  old  monastic 

[  habit  in  their  discipline — something  of  labour  and  of  regular 

hours :  the  Dominican  discipline  is  different.     In  the  matter 

I,    of  organization  especially  St.   Dominic  must  be  held  to  be 

practically  independent.   Two  things  he  borrowed — the  chapter 

general  (but  this  is  Cistercian  in  origin),^^  and  the  annul  circa- 


a 


^  Mandonnet  makes  a  very  interesting  remark  on  this  point.  He 
points  out  that  the  Dominican  Order  contained  two  somewhat  discrepant 
elements— the  monastic-canonical  element,  inherited  from  the  Prae- 
monstratensian model,  which  madeTor  the  ascetic  life  and  the  vita  contem- 
plattva,  and  produced  ascetics  and  mystics  ;  and  the  clerical-apostolic 
element,  the  essential  new  element,  which  made  for  the  active  life  of  study 
and  preaching,  and  produced  great  doctors  and  apostles.  There  is 
a  struggle  between  the  two  elements ;  the  former  tends  to  check  the 
latter.  The  practice  of  dispensation  is  meant  to  ease  the  struggle,  and  to 
secure  a  free  field  for  study  and  preaching.  But  the  rigid  and  ascetic 
element  in  the  Order  set  its  face  against  dispensation,  and  a  certain 
dualism  continued  to  mark  the  life  of  the  Order. 

^  Martene,  De  antiquis  ecclesiae  ritibus^  iii.  334  (Distinction  iv,  §1). 
Mart^ne  prints  the  original  constitutions  ;  for  their  later  form  cf.  Statuta 
Praemonstrat.  (Paris,  1632),  p.  188.  In  the  later  form  the  institution  of 
dejinitores,  which  we  shall  find  among  the  Dominicans,  appears  (p.  194) ; 
but  it  is  not  in  the  early  statutes. 

*°  Cf.  VioUet,  Histoire  des  Institutions  de  la  France^  ii.  381.     The 


THE   CONSTITUTIONS   OF  THE  ORDER      13 

tores ^  or  visitors,  two  in  number,  elected  annually  by  the 
abbots  of  a  circaria  or  circle  to  visit  the  abbeys  of  the  circle.^^ 
But  the  general  lines  of  Dominican  organization  are  indepen- 
dent of  the  Praemonstratensian,  just  as,  and  just  because,  the 
aims  and  objects  of  the  Dominicans  are  different  from  those  of 
the  Praemonstratensians. 

The  main  features  of  the  organization  of  the  Dominican 
Order  were  already  fixed  in  the  year  1221,  by  the  labours  of 
the  two  chapters  which  had  sat  at  Bologna  under  the  pre- 
sidency of  St.  Dominic  in  \^%o  and  1221.^^  It  is  a  point 
of  some  importance  for  our  inquiry  that  the  organization 
of  the  Order  should  have  been  completed  in  the  very  chapter 
which  made  England  a  province  and  dispatched  Gilbert  of 
Freynet  to  England.  Of  the  constitutions  of  1231  we  possess 
no  copy,  but  we  possess  a  copy  of  the  redaction  made  at 
Paris  in  1228.  In  that  year  we  read  that  there  were  gathered 
at  Paris,  in  the  convent  of  St.  James  (from  which  the 
Dominicans  at  Paris  were  called  Jacobins),  round  the  Master- 
General  Jordan,  the  priors  of  the  provinces,  each  with  two 
definitores  deputed  by  the  provincial  chapters,  to  whom  all 
the  friars  had  transferred  their  votes  {vota  sua)y  giving  them 
plenary  authority  to  act.  This  assembly  added  a  number  of 
constitutions  (as,  for  instance,  against  the  holding  of  property  ; 
concerning  the  removal  of  appeals ;  against  the  making  of 
constitutions  unless  approved  by  three  successive  chapters 
general — a  provision  which  reminds  us  of  the  Parliament  Act 

Cistercians  early  established  provincial  chapters  also,  and  they  are 
prescribed  as  a  rule  for  the  other  monks  who  have  not  hitherto  held  such 
chapters  in  the  twelfth  canon  of  the  Fourth  Lateran  Council  {in/ray  ii, 
n.  12). 

^^  See  note  7.  The  circatores  had  to  be  abbots  of  abbeys  in  the 
circaria :  Mart^ne,  p.  335,  Dist.  iv,  §  7.  In  the  Dominican  Order  the 
visitors  are  friars  freely  elected.  In  the  later  constitutions  of  the  Prae- 
monstratensians provision  is  made  for  regular  chapters  in  the  circariae^ 
attended  not  only  by  abbots  and  priors,  but  by  one  representative  pastor 
from  each  abbey,  to  be  deputed  by  the  other  pastors  {op.  cit.,  p.  206). 
But  this  seems,  like  the  instance  quoted  in  note  9,  to  be  imitation  by  the 
Praemonstratensians  of  the  Dominican  model  in  later  days. 

^^  It  was  in  1216  that  St.  Dominic  had  adopted  the  *  rule '  of  St.  Augus- 
tine, which  regulated  the  life  of  canons  regular,  and  had  added  consuetti- 
dines  of  his  own  for  the  guidance  of  the  Order.  But  the  constitutiones  of 
1220  are  the  '  essential  and  original  basis  of  Dominican  legislation  *. 
(Mandonnet,  in  the  Catholic  Encyclopaedia^  s.  v.  Preachers). 


14   THE  GOVERNMENT  OF  THE  ORDER 

of  191 1 — and  against  riding,  or  the  eating  of  flesh  except 
in  illness) ;  ^^  and  these  constitutions,  along  with  the  original 
statutes  of  1220  and  122 1,  form  the  redaction  of  1228.^*  The 
importance  of  the  assembly  of  1228  lies  not  only  in  its  work, 
but  in  its  own  composition.  Already  we  see  representative 
institutions  at  work ;  and  we  are  justified  in  believing  that 
those  institutions  were  incorporated  into  the  Order  in  the 
chapters  of  1220  and  1221,  and  were  part  of  the  working 
constitution  when  it  came  to  England  in  1221.^^ 

In  1 221  the  Order  was  divided  into  eight  provinces  (ana- 
logous to  the  Praemonstratensian  circariae,  but  still  more  to 
the  pays  of  the  Hospitallers),  each  containing  a  number  of 
houses  (conventus).  The  Order  was  to  be  governed  by  a 
master-general ;  the  province  by  a  provincial  prior ;  the 
convent,  which  must  contain  at  least  twelve  friars,  by  a  con- 
ventual prior.  We  have  to  consider  the  method  of  the  election 
of  these  officers,  and  the  extent  to  which  their  action  is 
accompanied  or  controlled  by  representative  bodies.  (1)  The 
conventual  prior  is  elected  by  the  friars  of  his  convent  (Dist. 
ii,  §  24) ;  ^^  the  provincial  prior  is  elected  by  a  provincial 
chapter  composed  of  the  conventual  priors  of  the  province  and 
two  friars  from  each  convent  elected  by  a  full  meeting  of  all 
the  friars  of  the  convent  (Dist.  ii,  §  15) ;  ^"^  the  master-general  is 
elected  by  a  general  chapter  composed  of  the  provincial  priors 

^^  For  the  assembly  of  1228  see  Constitutiones  Fratrum  S.  Ordinis 
Praedicatorumy  Paris,  1886,  pp.  478-9.  I  owe  my  copy  of  this  book 
to  the  generosity  of  my  old  pupil,  the  Rev.  Bede  Jarrett,  O.P. 

"  The  redaction  of  1228  is  printed  by  Father  Denifle  in  Ehrle-Denifle, 
Archiv,  i,  p.  196  sqq.,  with  an  introduction  which  I  have  used  freely. 
Father  Denifle  also  prints  a  reconstruction  of  the  redaction  of  1239-41 
(made  by  Raymond  of  Pennaforte,  third  Master  of  the  Order),  Archiv y  v. 
530  sqq.  The  last  redaction  in  the  thirteenth  century  is  that  of  Humbert, 
the  fifth  Master,  in  1256. 

"  Theodoric  of  Apoldia  tells  us,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  that  St.  Dominic 
decided  in  1220  at  Bologna  that  definitores  should  be  appointed,  with 
power  over  himself  as  master  and  over  the  whole  chapter,  to  define,  decree, 
and  ordain  all  things  as  long  as  the  chapter  should  last.  '  Decrevit  ut 
statuerentur  definitores,  qui  haberent  potestatem  super  ipsum  et  totum 
capitulum  diffiniendi  statuendi  ordinandi,  donee  duraret  capitulum '  {Acta 
Sanct.,  August,  i.  594). 

^^  The  references  are  all,  unless  otherwise  stated,  to  the  Constitutions 
of  1228  as  printed  in  Ehrle-Denifle,  Archiv,  i,  pp.  196  sqq. 

"  This  is  slightly  altered  in  the  modern  constitutions  ;  see  op.  cit.^ 
P-  337. 


THE    COMPOSITION    OF  THE   CHAPTERS     15 

and  two  friars  from  each  province  elected  by  the  provincial 
chapter  (Dist.  ii,  §  10).^^  The  free  use  of  election,  and  of  repre- 
sentatives in  election,  clearly  emerges.  (2)  By  the  side  of  the 
elected  officials  stand  assemblies  also  in  part  elected.  Of  the 
capitulum  quotidianum  in  each  convent  we  need  not  speak  ; 
but  the  constitution  and  action  of  the  provincial  chapter  and 
the  chapter  general  are  vital  to  our  argument.  The  provincial 
chapter  consists  of  the  priors  of  the  convents  of  the  province, 
of  the  general  preachers  of  the  province  (friars,  that  is  to  say, 
who  have  studied  theology  for  three  years,  Dist.  ii,  §  31),  and 
of  a  representative  elected  by  each  convent  (Dist.  ii,  §  1). 
For  its  guidance  the  provincial  chapter,  annually  elects  a  com- 
mittee of  four  definitores  from  the  more  discreet  and  proper 
friars.^^  It  is  the  office  of  this  committee  to  treat  and  define 
all  things  with  the  provincial  prior;  it  has  the  power  of 
hearing  and  amending  excesses  of  the  provincial  prior,  whom 
it  may,  in  case  of  need,  suspend  (Dist.  ii,  §  2-3).  The  chapter 
general  is  constituted  in  the  same  manner.^^  There  is  a  general 
body  and  there  is  an  effective  inner  circle  of  definitores.  -The 
general  body  consists  of  conventual  priors  with  their  socii  and 
the  general  preachers  of  the  province  in  which  the  general 
chapter  is  being  held  (Dist.  ii,  §  12).  The  arrangement  for 
the  constitution  of  the  inner  circle  of  definitores  is  peculiar 
'(Dist.  ii,  §§  5-8).  According  to  the  constitutions  of  1228  the 
general  chapters  are  held  annually.  In  two  successive  annual 
chapters  the  definitores  are  recruited  by  election  :  one  is  elected 
for  each  province  by  the  provincial  chapter,  and  each  has  a 
socius  assigned  to  him  by  the  provincial  prior  and  definitores 
to  take  his  place  if  he  cannot  be  present  at  the  general  chapter. 
In  every  third  general  chapter  the  definitores  cease  to  be  an 
elected  body :  the  provincial  priors  ex  officio  and  by  themselves 

^^  Four  provinces  created  since  1221  are  to  send  each  its  provincial 
prior  and  one  friar  to  the  chapter. 

^^  The  institution  oi  definitores  ('  qui  jouent  k  peu  pr^s  le  role  des  com- 
missaires  dans  nos  assemblies  delib^rantes  ',  Viollet,  op,  cit.y  ii.  382) 
becomes  common  in  the  thirteenth  century,  and  appears  for  instance 
in  the  constitution  of  the  Cluniac  Order. 

^°  The  chapters  general  met  alternately  at  Paris  and  Bologna  till  1244. 
Afterwards  they  met  in  different  places  (e.  g.  London  in  1250),  and  thus        ^' 
knowledge  of  the  organization  of  the  Order  would  be  spread.  \ 


j6  DEFINITORES  AND    VISITATORES 

act  as  definitores  for  the  year.  Any  new  constitution  must 
pass  through  three  successive  chapters  general  before  it  is 
finally  valid.  In  this  way  the  provincial  priors  get  some 
share  of  authority,  while  the  greater  weight  is  nevertheless 
reserved  for  the  elective  definitores P-  The  committee  of 
definitores^  whether  elected  or  ex  officio,  is  the  chief  organ. 
It  defines,  constitutes  and  treats  all  things  ;  its  members  have 
plenary  power,  extending  even  to  removal  from  office,  over 
the  master-general ;  and  careful  provision  is  made  for  counting 
a  majority  of  their  votes.  Beyond  the  chapter  general  stands 
the  capitulum  generalissimum^  a  body  which  only  met  twice 
in  the  history  of  the  Order — once  in  1228,  and  once  in  1236. 
It  contains  in  one  body,  and  in  a  single  meeting,  both  pro- 
vincial priors  and  elected  definitores^  two  from  each  province, 
appointed  by  the  provincial  chapter.  It  was  therefore  equiva- 
lent to  three  successive  chapters  general  of  the  ordinary 
kind  ;  and  consequently  it  could  pass  finally  and  at  once,  if 
there  were  urgent  need,  a  new  constitution.^^  Two  further 
points  may  conclude  this  sketch  of  Dominican  organization. 
St.  Dominic  borrowed  from  his  Praemonstratensian  model 
the  office  of  visitatores^  of  whom  four  were  to  be  elected  from 
the  friars  of  each  province, assembled  in  their  provincial  chapter, 
to  visit  the  province  and  to  hear  and  amend  all  excesses  (Dist. 
ii,  §  19);  but  the  fact  that  the  visitors  are  to  be  elected  from^ 
the  friars,  and  not  from  the  priors,  is  a  democratic  modification 
of  the  Praemonstratensian  rule,  which  only  allowed  abbots  to 
be  elected  as  circatores.  Further,  he  assigned  to  the  provincial 
prior  the  same  power  and  the  same  reverence  in  his  province 

^^  Humbert  de  Romanis  (quoted  in  Archiv,  vi.  22-3)  explains  that 
among  Orders  like  the  Cistercian  and  Praemonstratensian  the  authority 
rests  with  the  greater  prelates,  and  they  alone  act  as  definitores ;  with  the 
Franciscans  authority  is  shared  among  the  prelates  and  a  number  of  their 
subjects ;  but  among  the  Dominicans  there  is  abundantia  discretionis 
etiam  in  subditis  .  ,  .  et  ideo  fiunt  diffinitores  apud  nos  non  solum  praelati 
majores,  ut  provinciates,  sed  etiam  subditi  quicunque  per  electionem  in 
majore  numero.  Evidently  he  regards  the  Dominicans  as  carrying 
furthest  what  we  should  call  the  principle  of  democracy,  and  he  is  quite 
conscious  of  the  strength  of  representation  in  his  Order. 

22  See  Constitutiones  S.  Ord.  Praedic.  (Paris,  1886),  p.  478.  The 
capitulum  generalissimum  is  not  mentioned  in  the  constitutions  of  1228, 
though  they  were  passed  in  such  a  chapter ;  it  is  from  the  later  constitu- 
tions that  we  learn  its  composition. 


DEMOCRATIC  ORGAN  IZATION  OF  THE  ORDER    17 

as  that  of  the  master-general,  and  he  laid  it  down  that  on  the 
death  of  the  general  master,  the  provincial  priors  should 
exercise  the  full  powers  of  a  general  master  (Dist.  ii,  §  16,  §  9). 
What  arejthe  general  characteristics  of  this  organization? 
In  the  first  place  it  is  democratic.  If  Cluny  is  *  monarchical ',  ^J) 
if  Citeaux  (and  we  may  add  Premontre,  in  many  respects 
modelled  on  Citeaux)  is  '  aristocratical ',  we  may  call  the 
friars  democratic.^^  There  is  no  speech  in  their  organization 
of  abbots  or  of  paternal  authority  coming  from  above ; 
authority  springs  from  the  general  body,  and  the  officials 
ai^^attler  servants  of  that  body  than  its  lords.  This  demo- 
cratic flavour  is,  as  we  shall  see,  almost  as  striking  in  the 
Franciscan  as  in  the  Dominican  Order ;  but  the  whole 
mechanism  of  the  latter  Order,  as  it  has  been  just  described, 
is  obviously  democratic  in  comparison  with  previous  Orders. 
True,  the  democracy  is  de  facto^  and  in  its  actual  working 
compatible  and  connected  with  what  we  may  call  Caesarism ; 
the  Master-General  of  the  Order  is  often  its  moving  spirit. 
But  the  point  remains,  that  the  constitutional  arrangements, 
as  they  stand  de  jure,  are  of  a  kind  which  we  should  to-day 
call  democratic.^*     And,  in  the  second  place,  it  is  a  repre;; ^ 

1  "^^  H.  O.  Taylor,  The  Mediaeval  Mind,  i.  361 -3.  Mandonnet  speaks 
^f  modern  absolutist  governments  as  showing  *  little  sympathy  for  the 
democratic  constitution  of  the  Preachers  '  (s.  v.  Preachers,  368  E,  col.  2). 

2*  The  Constitution  of  the  Third  Order  (or  Tertiaries)  has  not  been 
described  in  the  text  ;  it  is  dubious  whether  the  Third  Order  was 
instituted  by  St.  Dominic  himself  (see  J.  Guiraud,  Life  of  St.  Dominic^ 
English  translation,  p.  166),  and  the  Constitutiones  S.  Ord.  Praed.  only 
give  a  transcription  made  from  the  papal  registers  in  1439,  ^^  ^^^  com- 
mand of  Eugenius  IV,  of  a  papal  bull  of  Innocent  VII  which  sets  forth  and 
confirms  the  rule  of  the  brethren  and  sisters  of  the  Third  Order  as 
hitherto  observed  (pp.  682-93).  According  to  Mandonnet,  the  Rule  of 
the  Third  Order  dates  from  1285,  and  was  confirmed  in  1286  by 
Honorius  IV.  Each  Fraternity  of  Tertiaries,  it  appears,  has  its  Master 
or  Director,  a  friar  appointed  by  the  Master-General  or  Provincial  Prior 
at  the  request  of  the  Fraternity,  and  its  Prior,  an  officer  appointed  by  the 
Master  with  the  counsel  of  the  Ancient  of  the  Fraternity.  Each  year  the 
Master  and  the  ancients  scrutinize  the  Prior  ^nd  his  actions.  The  Order  of 
Tertiaries  would  spread  knowledge  of  Dominican  organization,  arid  has  in 
itself  some  approach  to  self-government.  But  we  must  note  (i)  that  the 
Rule  of  the  Third  Order  of  the  Dominicans  was  modelled  on  that  of  the 
Franciscan  brothers  of  Penance  ;  and  (2)  that  it  was  opposed  by  the 
Franciscans  as  an  encroachment,  and  by  some  of  the  Dominicans  as 
an  e)w:rescence,  and  it  grew  but  slowly  (Mandonnet,  p.  369,  col.  2). 

1S61  B 


i8         THE   CONSTITUTIONS  AS   A  MODEL 

sentative  democracy.  There  is  repeatedly  election  of  free 
representatives,  who  are  not  delegates,  but  have  (as  we  read 
of  the  assembly  of  1:^:^8)  'plenary  power,  so  that  whatever  is 
done  by  them  shall  remain  firm  and  stable'.  The  characteristic 
feature  of  the  Order,  says  Mandonnet,  is  its  elective  system  ; 
it  is  the  general  chapters,  built  largely  on  this  system,  which 
wield  supreme  power,  and  are  the  great  regulators  of  Dominican 
life  in  the  Middle  Ages  ;  from  them  springs  that  spirit  of  firm- 
ness and  decision  which  marks  the  whole  Order.  Thirdly  and 
lastly,  the  constitutions  of  the  Order  are  clear-cut  in  their 
outline,  and  show  something  of  a  legal  nicety  and  precision. 
*  It  is  the  most  perfect  example  that  the  Middle  Ages  have 
produced  of  the  faculty  of  monastic  corporations  for  con- 
stitution-building.' ^^  Its  institutions  are  adjusted  to  probable 
emergencies  ;  they  define,  for  instance,  the  conditions  of  a 
valid  majority  ;  they  are  institutions  meant,  and  likely,  to 
work.  We  may  conjecture  that  they  will  also  be  likely  to 
impress  men  who  come  into  contact  with  them,^^  and  that 
they  will  tend  to  be  imitated.  And  if  they  are  imitated,  the 
use  of  representation  is  the  thing  which  will  in  particular  be 
imitated. 

But  before  we  can  verify  that  conjecture,  we  must  ask  to 
what  extent  these  institutions  are  original  and  to  what  extent 
they  are  unique.  Was  St.  Dominic  borrowing?  Did  other 
orders  or  bodies  share  these  institutions?  We  may  lay  it 
down  at  once  that  St.  Dominic  was  not  borrowing  from  the 
Franciscans  ;  but  that  is  a  point  to  which  we  shall  have  to 
return.  On  the  other  hand,  we  may  readily  guess  that  the 
Military  Orders  contributed  to  his  scheme  of  organization. 
They  too  formed  a  militia  spiritualis ;  they  too  followed,  like 
the  Dominicans,  the  rule  of  life  of  canons  regular. 

We  shall  perhaps  do  best,  in  seeking  to  trace  the  relations 
of  the  Dominican  Order  to  the  Military  Orders,  to  consider 
the  Hospitallers  first.     Their  connexion  with  Spain,  and  with 

"^  Hauck,  Kirchengeschichte  Deutschlands,  iv.  390. 

^^  The  Order  spread  widely,  and  would  be  well  known  in  most  coun- 
tries. By  1228  there  were  eight  provinces;  by  1256  there  were  5,000 
priests  in  the  Order  (besides  2,000  other  clergy  and  lay  brethren) ;  by 
1277  there  were  404  convents  (Mandonnet). 


DOMINICANS   AND    HOSPITALLERS  19 

St.  Dominic's  quarter  of  Spain,  was  earj^  and  intimate.  As 
early  as  1 1 1 6  they  had  received  donfltions  in  Castilfe  and 
Leon; 2"^  and  when  a  g«md  master  arose  for  Spain  about  11 70 
{magnus  magister  in  V  regnis  Hispaniae),  he  was  specially 
accredited  in  Castile,  which  was  under  his  immediate  super- 
vision. About  1 1 90,  however,  a  separate  organization  was 
given  to  the  Hospitallers  of  Castile  and  Leon,  such  as  those 
of  the  other  kingdoms  had-enjoyed  before.  A  priory  of  Castile 
and  Leon  is  created  :  the  chapter  of  the  priory  meets  in  1 190.28 
Its  organization  is  likely  to  come  to  the  notice  of  the  young 
Dominic,  who  is  studying  in  Palencia  in  1190,  and  becomes 

a  canon  of  Osma  in  1194.  " £^^ 

/  The  general  basis  of  the  organization  of  the  Hospitallers  is 
fthe  sovereignty  of \the  Chapter.j  The  general  chapter  of  the 
whole  Order  is'sovefeign  in  legislation  and  discipline,  but  while 
reserving  a  right  of  control  it  leaves  executive  power  to  the 
Grand  Master  and  the  officers  of  his  appointing,  who  are  its 
delegates  or  representatives.  The  same  principle  applies  to 
the  subordinate  chapters  in  their  degree ;  it  is  the  principle, 
in  a  sense,  of  representative  or  parliamentary  government. 
At  the  centre  the  general  chapter  proper,  in  the  twelfth  and 
even  in  the  thirteenth  century,  meets  irregularly  and  at 
variable  intervals.  Nor  is  it  very  determinate  in  its  com- 
position; the  Grand  Master  summons  the  officials  of  the 
Holy  Land,  the  priors  of  the  West,  and  those  of  the  simple 
knights  whose  discretion  or  testimony  in  any  affair  renders 
their  presence  necessary.  The  regular  and  permanent  body 
which  the  Grand  Master  consults  (when  it  is  not  a  matter  of 
general  legislation  or  discipline)  is  the  *  Convent  \  which  is 
always  in  attendance  and  consists  of  the  officers  of  the  central 
administration.  If  we  see  in  this  central  government  a  germ 
of  Dominican  organization,  we  must  admit  that  that  organiza- 
tion is  more  highly  differentiated  and  more  strictly  regular 
than  its  germ.  Locally,  the  Hospitallers  are  organized  in 
commanderies  or  houses  of  brothers,  living  in  community 
under  a  praeceptor  or  commander,  and  meeting  every  Sunday 

^■^  Delaville  Le  Roulx,  Les  Hospitaliers^  p.  377. 
^^8  Ibid.,  p.  380. 


^ 


r'^ 


20  HOSPITALLERS   AND   TEMPLARS 

in  ordinary  chapter ;  in  priories,  or  groups  of  commanderies, 
under  a  prior,  who  holds  a  chapter  of  the  priory  about 
St.  John's  Day;  and  in  grand  commanderies,  or  groups  of 
priories,  under  a  grand  commander.^^  The  chapter  of  the 
priory  is  open  in  theory  to  all  the  brethren  of  a  priory  ;  in 
fact  it  is  composed  of  the  brethren  resident  at  the  chief  place 
of  the  priory  and  of  the  commanders  of  commanderies  attend- 
ing as  representatives  of  their  knights.  There  are  here  no 
representatives  proper,  as  in  the  Dominican  Order ;  and  yet 
the  spirit  of  this  Military  Order  is,  as  we  said  above,  in  a  sense 
representative.  The  Chapter  General  is  the  one  legislative 
authority :  if  it  leaves  administration  to  the  officers,  it  nomi- 
nates and  controls  those  officers.  Each  chapter,  from  the 
chapter  general  to  the  ordinary  chapter,  assists  its  superior 
in  government,  and  shares  with  its  superior  in  responsibility. 
The  central  officers  must  be  renewed  in  each  chapter  general : 
they  bear  a  burden  rather  than  an  honour  (onus  non  honos) : 
they  are  servants  of  the  chapter.^^ 

The  organization  of  the  Templars  was  somewhat  similar  in 
detail,  but  somewhat  different  in  spirit.  By  the  time  that  the 
organization  of  the  Order  was  fixed  (in  the  twenty-four  years 
between  Alexander  Ill's  bull  Omne  datum  optimum  of  ii 63 
and  the  loss  of  Jerusalem  in  11 87)  the  Grand  Master  has 
achieved  a  great  position.  He  has  indeed  to  consult  the 
chapter  general  on  all  important  matters,  and  to  submit  to 
its  decision  such  matters  as  the  alteration  or  repeal  of  a 
decision  of  a  chapter,  the  alienation  of  property,  and  the 
military  policy  of  the  Order.  But  he  has  his  own  treasure ; 
he  has  no  Conventus  at  his  side,  but  only  two  adjutants ;  and 
if  he  needs  the  consent  of  the  chapter  in  appointing  the  Grand 
Praeceptors   of  provinces,^^   he   appoints   himself  the   lower 

29  The  Grand  Commandery  is  a  pays  or  (in  later  phrase)  a  langue. 
This  suggests  the  Dominican  provinces.  The  nomenclature  of  the 
Hospitallers  (e.  g.  magister)  also  suggests  that  of  the  Dominicans. 

^°  In  practice,  as  time  went  on,  the  Grand  Master  grew  more  auto- 
cratic, and  in  1295  the  knights  ask  for  a  permanent  council  of  seven 
definitores  at  his  side. 

^^  Aragon  and  Portugal  were  provinces,  but  not  Castile,  though  the 
Order  had  a  position  in  Castile.  Prutz,  Entwickelung  und  Untergang 
des  Tempelherrenordens,  pp.  44,  61. 


mcis?  i 

;  out/ 

:iscam 


EARLY   FRANCISCAN    ORGANIZATION        21 

officers.  Nor  was  there  any  great  amount  of  local  indepen- 
dence ;  the  provincial  praeceptors  controlled  the  lower  officers, 
who  had  little  independence.^^  It  is  to  the  Hospitallers 
)-ather  than  to  the  Templars  that  we  must  look  for  light 
on  the  Dominican  Order ;  and  we  must  admit  that  even  if 
St.  Dominic  borrowed  elements  from  the  Hospitallers,  he  did 
not  simply  copy,  and  that  he  did  not  find  there  any  use  of 
representation. 

We  have  considered  the  relations  of  St.  Dominic  to  the 
Military  Orders  ;  but  what  of  his  relations  to  St.  Francis  ? 
We  are  only  concerned  with  those  relations  at  one  point ; 
one  inquiry  concerns  the  relations  of  Dominican  to  Francisci 
organization.  The  earliest  copy  of  the  Franciscan  Rule  which 
we  possess,  the  regula  non  bullata^  whose  date  may  be  fixed  as 
a  little  posterior  to  the  end  of  May,  1221,  enables  us  to  give 
an  answer.^^  The  rule  is  simple  ;  it  shows  nothing  of 
St.  Dominic's  genius  for  organization.  We  hear  of  officials, 
*  ministers  and  servants  of  the  other  friars,'  whose  duty  it  is  to 
visit  and  spiritually  warn  and  comfort  in  all  provinces  and  in 
places,  and  to  give  to  friars  their  licence  to  preach.  In  each  , 
year  each  minister  may  assemble  with  his  friars,  wherever  they 
will,  to  treat  of  the  things  that  belong  to  God.  Every  year 
the  Italian  minis tri  (the  minis tri  outside  Italy  need  only 
come  once  in  three  years)  shall  gather  at  Whitsuntide  at  the 
Church  of  St.  Mary  de  Portiuncula,  unless  by  the  minister 
and  servant  of  the  whole  Order  it  be  otherwise  ordained. 
The  friars  are  now  too  numerous  to  permit  of  the  old  broad 
primary  assemblies  of  all  the  *  brethren ' :  the  last  of  those 
assemblies,  held  in  1221,  had  contained  5,000  members;  and 
the  old  democratic  gathering  has  now  to  give  place  to  a  conci- 
lium principum.  In  all  this  we  have  adumbrated  the  outlines 
of  an  organization  ;  butJSt.  Francis  is  not  in  love  with  organi- 
zation.    He  will  not  have  any  one  called  prior,^*  but  rather 

^2  Prutz,  op.  ctt.j  pp.  42-4. 

^'  The  rule  is  printed  in  Bohmer,  Analekten  zur  Geschichte  des  Fran 
ciscus  von  Assist ^  pp.  7  sqq.    We  have  no  copy  of  the  original  r 
of  1209.     (The  view  has,  however,  been  held  that  the  regula  non  bull^ 
is  itself  the  original  rule  of  1209.) 

^*  Is  this  possibly  a  reference  to  the  Dominican  title  ?   If  so,  St.  Francis 
may  have  had  the  Dominican  constitutions  before  him. 

B3 


1/ 


22  FRANCISCAN   DEVELOPMENT 

all  C2l\Qdfr aires  minores  ;  he  will  not  have  the  brethren  bear 
I/power  or  dominion,  especially  among  themselves.  A  friar  is 
not  bound  to  obey  a  minister  vjho  commands  anything  against 
the  *  life ' ;  and  the  friars  are  to  consider  the  doings  of  minis tri 
and  servi^  and  if  they  are  doing  wrong  after  the  third  admoni- 
tion, to  renounce  them  in  the  Whitsuntide  chapter.  Some  of 
these  rules  would  be  the  despair  of  any  statesman  ;  and  some 
of  them  (as  for  instance  the  rule  authorizing  a  friar  in  disobeying 
a  minister)  are  dropped  in  the  next  redaction  of  the  Rule  we 
possess— that  of  i2g<^.^^  In  this  new  redaction  we  also  see  an 
advance  m  organization.  The  titles  minister  generalis  and 
minister  provincialis  appear  ;  the  general  minister  is  to  be 
elected  in  a  chapter  general  composed  of  provincial  ministri 
and  custodes,  the  latter  a  new  title,  which  designates  the  head 
of  a  group  of  friars.  If  the  chapter,  forming  the  universitas  of 
ministers  and  custodes^  considers  the  general  minister  inade- 
quate, it  may  elect  another  friar  for  custodian  (custos)  of  the 
Order.  After  the  general  chapter  the  ministers  and  guardians 
may  severally,  if  they  will,  summon  the  friars  in  their  '  custo- 
dies *  once  to  a  chapter.  But  the  general  chapter  is  now  only 
triennial ;  and  the  subsidiary  chapters,  which  are  to  follow  on 
the  general  chapter,  are  therefore  also  intermittent.  It  is  not 
chapters,  but  the  general  minister,  of  whom  St.  Francis  thinks. 
In  his  Testamentum,  about  1226,  he  speaks  of  his  obedience 
to  the  general  minister  and  the  other  guardians  whom  he  is 
pleased  to  give ;  *  and  I  wish  so  to  be  caught  in  his  hands  as 
not  to  be  able  tp  go  or  to  do  outside  my  obedience  and  his 
y  will  '.^^  If  in  the  Dominican  Order  it  is  the  General  Master 
and  the  Chapter  who  together  form  the  sovereign  body>  it  is 
the  General  Minister,  and  the  General  Minister  only,  who  is 
sovereign  in  the  Franciscan  Order  down  to  the  revolution  of 
1239-40.  He  is  undisputed  Caesar  :  he  nominates  subordinate 
officers,  and  he  legislates  either  without  any  chapter  (Elias  held 
no  chapters  in  his  nine  years'  tenure  of  office  from  1230  to  1239), 

"^^  A  redaction  of  the  year  1222  is  lost  (Bohmer,  op.cit.,  Introduction). 
The  redaction  of  1223  is  printed  by  Bohmer,  pp.  30  sqq.  For  an  account 
of  it,  and  of  the  constitutional  history  of  the  Franciscan  Order  in  the 
thirteenth  century,  see  Ehrle  in  Archiv  fiir  Lit.-  unci  Kircheng:^  vi. 

^®  See  §§  9-10  of  the  Testamenfwn  in  Bohmer. 


/I 


FRANCISCAN  DEBT  TO  DOMINICAN  ORDER     23 

or  with  a  chapter  composed  only  and  entirely  of  officers 
whom  he  has  himself  appointed.  There  is  a  complete  absence 
of  representative  institutions  :  the  change  introduced  by 
Gregory  IX  in  1230,  according  to  which  the  custodes  of 
a  province  ceased  to  attiend  chapters  in  person,  and  elected 
one  of  their  number  to  go  in  their  stead,  can  hardly  be  called 
a  step  towards  representation. 

Such  was  the  organization  of  the  Franciscan  Order  when  it 
reached  England  in  1224.  By  1240  that  organization  had 
been  greatly  changed ;  but  it  had  been  changed  by  bein 
assimilated  to  the  Dominican  model.  ^Each  of  the  three  main 
features  of  the  revolution  achieved  in  the  two  chapters  of  1239 
and  1240  is  a  Dominican  feature.  The  powers  of  the  general 
minister  and  his  subordinates  are  restricted,  and  partially,  in 
some  cases  wholly,  transferred  to  the  general  and  provincial 
chapters.  The  nomination  of  subordinate  officers  passes  out 
of  the  hands  of  the  general  minister ;  they  are  henceforth 
appointed  by  the  free  choice,  or  at  any  rate  with  the  consent, 
of  the  chapters.  Finally,  provision  was  made,  exactly  on  the 
Dominican  model, ^"^  for  the  election  of  definitores  to  attend 
the  general  chapter;  and  henceforth  a  freely  elected  repre- 
sentative element  was  added  to  the  officials  who  had  hitherto 
alone  composed  the  chapter.  This  was  the  form  of  organiza- 
tion definitely  codified  at  Narbonne  in  1260,  and  henceforth 
regular.^^     It  follows,  therefore,  that  if  we  are  looking  for  the 

"  Strictly  speaking,  the  exact  Dominican  model  was  only  followed  once, 
or  perhaps  twice ;  cf.  Eccleston  (ed.  A.  G.  Little),  p.  Z^,  and  n.  * ;  cf.  also 
Ehrle,  Archiv^  vi.  20  sqq.  The  Franciscan  chapter  general,  by  1260, 
differs  from  the  Dominican  in  being  triennial,  not  annual ;  and  in  admit- 
ting the  provincial  minister  in  every  chapter  to  the  committee  of 
definitores. 

^^  See  Ehrle,  Archtv,  vi,  who  prints  the  Constitutions  of  1260.  In 
these  constitutions  we  may  note  (i)  ihe guardiani  and  custodes  are  nomi- 
nated by  the  provincial  minister  with  counsel  and  consent  (pp.  127-8),  the 
provincial  minister  is  elected  by  the  provincial  chapter  (p.  125),  and  the 
general  minister  is  elected  by  the  provincial  ministers  and  custodes  (p.  123) ; 
(2)  the  annual  provincial  chapter  consists  of  custodes  and  fratres  of  the 
province,  but  to  avoid  a  multitude  of  members  there  is  an  election  in 
each  convent  of  one  discretus  (p.  129) :  four  definitores  are  selected  by 
three  men  named  by  the  minister,  the  custos,  and  the  guardian  of  the 
place  of  the  chapter  (p.  131) ;  (3)  the  triennial  general  chapter  is  attended 
by  the  provincial  ministers  each  with  a  socius,  by  one  custos  from  each 
province  elected  by  the  custodes  (as  laid  down  in  1230),  and  by  one  discretus 


24  CENTRALIZATION  IN  THE  RELIGIOUS  ORDERS 

organization  of  the  friars,  and  the  effect  of  that  organization 
on  the  rest  of  the  Church,  we  must  start  from  the  Dominican 
lOrder.  The  early  Franciscan  organization  is  too  simple  and 
inchoate  to  have  served  as  a  model :  the  later  Franciscan 
— p>.«^;>,>.4^;/Np  ;c  i^^^^^f  Yl^"'^^  on  the  Dominican.  But  we  may 
allow,  nevertheless,  that  part  of  the  early  Franciscan  organi- 
zation (the  broad  primary  assembly  down  to  I32i,and  the 
whole  tone  of  the  regula  non  bullatd)  showed  a  still  stronger 
democratic  tendency  than  that  of  the  Dominicans,  and  would 
foster  a  feeling  for  liberty  such  as  inspires  the  Franciscan 
author  of  the  Song  of  Lewes ;  and  we  may  allow  that  the 
Dominican  organization  acted  through  the  Franciscans,  who 
had  modelled  themselves  upon  it,  as  well  as  through  the 
Dominicans  themselves.^^  Indeed  we  may  go  further,  and 
admit  that  the  type  of  institutions  employed  by  the  Dominicans 
was  becoming  common  among  religious  orders  generally  in 
the  thirteenth  century.**^  There  was  a  movement  towards 
centralization ;  and  this  movement  involved  on  the  one  hand 
a  central  executive,  on  the  other  hand  a  central  legislature, 
while  the  central  legislature  needed  the  guidance  of  a  com- 
mittee like  the  Dominican  definitores^  and  the  central  executive 
needed  the  help  of  local  representatives  like  the  Praemonstra- 
tensian  circatores  and  Dominican  visitors.  To  this  movement 
the  Military  Orders  had  contributed,  ruled  as  they  were  by 
grand  masters  and  general  chapters  ;  to  it  the  widespread 
Cistercians  had  contributed,  united  as  they  were  by  the  annual 
chapters  at  Citeaux  in  a  fraternal  bond  of  charity ;  to  it  the 
Praemonstratensians  had  contributed,  divided  as  they  were 
into  circles,  from  which  possibly  the  provinces  of  the  Military 
Orders,  and  thus  indirectly  those  of  the  Friars,  were  borrowed. 
Of  this  movement  the  organization  of  the  Friars  is  the  culmi- 
nation, though  even  old  Orders  like  Cluny  came   under  its 

elected  by  the  provincial  chapter— the  tnlnistri  and  discreti  acting  as 
definitores  (p.  134). 

^^  M.  VioUet  inverts  the  truth  when  he  says:  La  constitution  des 
Dominicains^je  dirais  volontiers  politique,  fut  calquSe  sur  la  constitution 
franciscaine  {op.  cit.,  ii.  392). 

^^  See  Viollet,  op.  cit.,  ii.  381.  Thus  even  the  Benedictines  were 
enjoined  by  a  canon  of  the  fourth  Lateran  Council  to  hold  provincial 
chapters,  in  which  visitatores  were  to  be  elected  ;  cf.  infra,  ii.  n.  12. 


THE   ORDERS   A   PROGRESSIVE   FORCE      35 

influence.'^^  Nevertheless  we  would  still  urge  that  the  precise  ' 
form  which  the  culmination  took  is  due  to  the  statesmanship 
of  St.  Dominic ;  and  we  would  further  urge  that  the  Dominican 
Order  is  original  and  unique  in  its  use  of  representatives  elected 
by  local  communities  for  the  conduct  of  the  affairs  of  the 
Order.  y^ 

It  was  this  use  of  representatives  elected  by  local  commu- 
nities which  was  perhaps  imitated  in  England  by  the  secular  \ 
clergy,  and  which  gave  us  our  representative  Convocation.  :^ 
For  whatever  the  disputes  and  struggles  between  the  Orders  /" 
and  the  secular  clergy,  it  cannot  be  denied  that  the  Orders 
represented  the  advance  guard  of  the  Church  militant,  and 
that  they  drew  after  them  the  seculars  to  a  higher  level  of 
discipline  and  a  more  developed  form  of  organization.  The 
Orders  were  the  field  for  progressive  experimentation:  they 
represented,  particularly  in  the  field  of  organization,  the  liberal 
and  radical  element  of  the  Church.  Each  new  Order,  however 
much  it  might  lean  on  the  past  and  on  previous  models,  meant 
a  new  possibility  of  institutional  development.  The  Dominicans 
had  availed  themselves  of  that  possibility ;  and  the  vogue  and 
the  prestige  which  this  compact  and  admirably  organized 
community  enjoyed  in  the  thirteenth  century,  both  with  ^ 
statesmen  like  de  Montfort  and  prelates  like  Langton,  would 
tend  to  the  spread  of  its  institutions.  Here  was  an  approved 
type ;  and  it  is  a  law  of  human  nature  that  the  approved  type 
should  at  once  be  imitated.  The  majority  of  the  religious 
Orders  of  the  thirteenth  century,  says  Mandonnet,  followed 
quite  closely  Dominican  legislation,  and  the  Church  considered 
it  the  typical  rule  for  new  foundations.'*^ 

How  far,  if  at  all,  secular  models  were  followed  by 
St.  Dominic  in  his  adoption  of  this  principle  of  the  election 
of  representatives  by  local  communities  it  is  difficult  to  say. 

^^  In  the  course  of  the  thirteenth  century  Cluny  acquired  a  chapter 
general,  with  definitores  elected  by  the  chapter  general  (not,  be  it  noted, 
by  local  units,  as  in  the  Dominican  Order).     See  supra^  n.  19. 

*-  The  Friars  of  the  Sack  adopted  the  Dominican  organization  in  toto : 
cf.  E,H,R.^  ix.  121  sqq.  Grosseteste,  in  his  struggle  with  his  chapter, 
appeals  to  the  example  of  Dominican  practice  in  the  matter  of  visitations 
{Epistolae^  pp.  377-8). 


26/  REPRESENTATION   IN   SPAIN 


1/^1 


ne  naturally  turns  to  Spain  and  to  Southern  France.  The 
early  constitutional  history  of  Spain  has  still  to  be  written. 
The  first  meeting  of  the  Castilian  Cortes  at  which  representa- 
tives of  towns  were  present  was  in  1169.*^  In  Leon  itself^ 
St.  Dominic's  home,  we  hear  of  electi  cives  [deputados  6  pro- 
airadores  de  las  ciudades)  attending  along  with  all  the  bishops 
and  magnates  at  a  meeting  in  1188,  and  again  in  1208.** 
These  things  were  doubtless  known  to  St.  Dominic  (who  in 
1188  was  canon  of  Osma  in  Leon).  How  far  they  influenced 
him — how  far  the  founder  of  an  ecclesiastical  Order  would 
take  heed  of  any  but  ecclesiastical  precedents — we  cannot  say. 
If  we  could  tell  at  what  date  prelates  and  chapters  of  cathedral 
and  collegiate  churches  began  to  send  plenipotentiary  repre- 
sentatives to  the  Cortes,  as  we  are  told  they  did,^^  we  might 
be  able  to  make  some  tentative  statement ;  but  in  default  of 
more  precise  knowledge  we  can  only  return  an  ignoramus. 
We  do  not  know  whether  Spanish  precedent  influenced 
St.  Dominic  :  all  that  we  know  is  that  communities  {tmiversi- 
dades  and  especially  ciudades)  were  represented  in  Spain,  and 
that,  at  any  rate  in  time,  these  representatives  were  of  the 
'nature  of  proctors,  and  had  powers  of  attorney. 

Southern  France,  the   home  of  Roman    influence  and  of 

*^  Stubbs,  Const.  Hist.  ii.  168  ;  Schafer,  SpanieUy  iv.  192.  The  meet- 
ing was  at  Burgos.  In  Aragon  procuradores  of  towns  and  districts  are 
attested  at  Huesca  in  1162  :  Schafer,  iii.  208.  In  Aragon  the  cortes  were 
more  settled  and  permanent  in  form  than  in  Castile  (ibid.,  p.  229,  n.). 
Here  there  appeared  promovedores,  who  are  like  the  ecclesiastical 
definitores,  and  whose  office  it  was  to  submit  matters  to  the  proper  '  arm ' 
{brazoj  or  House),  to  receive  its  decision,  and  to  get  that  decision  written 
down  by  a  notary  (ibid.,  p.  232).  We  may  notice  (ibid.,  p.  216)  that  the 
fourth  arm  in  Aragon  is  the  braso  de  universidades,  or  house  of  corpora- 
tions or  communities  (cf.  our  House  of  Commons,  or  domus  cominuni- 
tatum).  According  to  one  historian  of  Spain  (Burke,  i.  343)  every 
corporation  was  entitled  in  theory  to  send  a  representative.  Further,  the 
representatives  of  these  bodies  ^.vQpersoneros,  ox  procuradores  :  they  have 
powers  of  attorney,  sometimes  in  writing.  Here  we  have  the  two  cardinal 
ideas  of  the  English  parliament  under  Edward  I, — the  representation  of 
communities,  and  the  procuratorial  character  of  such  representation 
(cf.  the  Writ  of  Summons  of  the  parliament  of  1295).  But  these  ideas  are 
later  than  the  twelfth  century,  though  in  the  absence  of  any  readily 
accessible  '  constitutional  documents '  for  Spanish  history  it  is  difficult  to 
fix  the  date  of  their  emergence. 

^*  Coleccion  de  Cortes^  Madrid,  1885. 

"^  Schafer,  op.  cit.,  iv.  221.  The  first  instance  I  have  noted  of  proctors 
of  chapters  in  Spanish  provincial  synods  is  in  1302  [m/ruy  ii.  n.  2>7)- 


THE   IDEA   OF   REPRESENTATION  27 

a  precocious  culture,  gives  us  cases  of  representation  early  in 
the  thirteenth  century.  In  Languedoc,  at  the  end  of  the 
twelfth  century,  we  find  two  towns  represented  at  the  curia 
generalis  of  their  lord.  In  121 2  Simon  de  Montfort  summons 
to  a  great  parliament  at  Pamiers  bishops,  nobles,  and  notable 
burgesses,  and  has  statutes  made  therein  for  the  regulation  of 
the  country;  and  a  similar  assembly  was  held  at  Beziers  after 
his  son  Amaury  had  ceded  Languedoc  to  Louis  VIII.'*®  The 
representatives  at  another  assembly  at  Beziers  (but  this  is  not 
until  1 271)  bring  procuratorial  powers  from  their  towns.  The 
interest  of  these  instances  lies  in  the  fact  that  St.  Dominic  was  > 
closely  connected,  after  about  1203,  with  the  South  of  France, 
and  with  the  elder  Simon  de  Montfort.  When  one  sees 
St.  Dominic  and  de  Montfort  in  conjunction  in  Southern 
France — when  one  remembers  what  St.  Dominic  did  for  the 
principle  of  representation  in  the  Church,  and  de  Montfort's 
son  for  that  principle  in  the  State — one  is  tempted  to  find  some 
common  ground  for  their  allegiance  to  the  principle,  and  to 
find  that  common  ground  in  Southern  France.  But  that  would 
be  pure  conjecture  ;  and  it  would  be  safer  to  say  that  the  com- 
mon ground  between  the  two  was  a  common  adhesion  to  the 
same  idea,  an  idea  always  cherished  by  the  Church,  of  power 
as  a  trust  given  by  the  community,  and  of  the  community  as 
in  some  sense  sovereign  of  itself,  even  if  it  delegates  its  sove 
reignty  to  a  magister.  It  is  an  idea  with  a  long  history.  It 
is  expressed  by  Ulpian  {Quod priftcipi placuit  legis  habet  vigo- 
rem,  utpote  cum  populus  .  .  ,  ei  et  in  cum  omne  suiim  imperium 
et  potestatem  confer  at)  :  it  is  expressed  in  Peter  Damiani 
(Potestas  est  in  populo  A  summo  data  Domino") :  it  is  expressed 
in  the  Song  of  Lewes  by  de  Montfort's  partisan.  It  underlies 
the  organization  of  the  Hospitallers  :  it  underlies  that  of  the 
Dominicans.  Whenever  men  conceive  of  a  group  clearly  and 
strongly  as  a  community  or  brotherhood,  they  must  conceive 
of  it  as  sovereign  of  itself ;  whenever  they  seek  to  realize  that 
self-sovereignty  in  deed  as  well  as  in  word,  they  are  driven 
beyond  the  conception  of  power  as  in  its  nature  representative 
to  the  actual  use  of  representative  institutions.  The  Military 
**  Viollet,  Hisioire  des  institutions  de  la  France^  iii.  pp.  180- 1. 


^ 


a8  THE   DOMINICANS   IN   ENGLAND 

Orders  and  the  Friars  were  such  a  brotherhood  {commilitones 
and  fratres) ;  and  in  the  friars,  if  not  in  the  knights,  the  full 
consequences  of  their  brotherhood  were  drawn.  Perhaps 
through  St.  Dominic,  perhaps  through  the  example  of 
Southern  France,  perhaps  independently,  the  family  of  de 
Montfort  (or  so  to  some  of  us  it  may  seem)  became  imbued 
with  this  conception — a  conception  continued  by  the  Lancas- 
trians, their  dispossessors  and  successors  (if  sometimes,  as  with 
Thomas  of  Lancaster,  for  selfish  ends,  and  sometimes,  as  with 
Henry  IV,  under  compulsion),  and  continued  further  in  the 
Whig  theory  of  Locke. 

Let  us  for  a  moment  seek  to  realize  the  vogue  of  the 
Dominicans  in  England  during  the  thirteenth  century,  before 
we  seek  to  trace  the  development  of  representation  in  the 
provincial  synods  of  the  Church.  Even  before  the  Dominican 
mission  came  to  England  in  1221,  connexions  had  been  knit 
between  the  Order  and  England.  St.  ^anugjc  was  already 
the  close  friend  of  the  elder  Simon  de  Montfort ;  Laurence  of 
^England  was  already  a  friar.'*'^  When  Gilbert  of  Freynet 
'  came  in  1221,  he  travelled  with  his  twelve  brethren  in  the 
company  of  Peter  des  Roches,  Bishop  of  Winchester,  who  was 
returning  from  the  Holy  Land  by  way  of  Bologna.  When  he 
reached  Canterbury,  he  was  cordially  received  by  the  great 
Langton  (father  of  Magna  Carta,  and  father  of  a  representative 
Convocation),  at  whose  request  he  preached  in  a  church  where 
Langton  himself  should  have  preached.  The  archbishop  was 
so  greatly  edified  by  his  discourse,  that  ever  afterwards  he 
bore  a  special  affection  for  the  Dominicans.*^  At  the  end  of 
the  year  Gilbert  settled  in  Oxford,  and  St.  Edward's  School 
was  soon  begun.  A  house  was  established  in  London  at 
Holborn ;  de  Montfort  founded  another  in  Leicester ;  and  the 
.  Order  was  multiplied.  In  1229,  after  a  great  dispute  of  town 
and  gown  at  Paris,*^  there  was  an  emigration  of  Dominicans 
to  Oxford  ;  and  the  Master  himself,  Jordan,  came  to  Oxford, 
where  Grosseteste  met  him,  and  was  admitted  by  his  '  sweet 


J.  Guiraud,  Life  of  St.  Dominic  (Eng.  trans.),  p.  105. 
**  Trivet,  Annales,  s.  a.  1221 :  toto  suo  tempore  religionem  fratrn^ 
Praedicatorum  et  officium  prosecutus  est  gratia  et  favor e.  ^ 

^^  Rashdall,  History  of  Mediaeval  Universities^  i.  337.  1 


THEIR   INFLUENCE   IN    ENGLAND  29 

affability'  to  many  conversations.     In  the  house  at  Oxford       / 
was  held  the  Mad  Parliament  in  1258,  and  a  general  chapte^    / 
of  the    Order   in   1280;    in   the  house   at   Holborn  general^ 
chapters   assembled    in    1250   and    1263,   and   at   the   lattej^ 
St.  Thomas  Aquinas  was  present  as  definitor  of  the  Romam  \       y 
province.    Grosseteste,  friendly  as  he  was  with  the  Franciscans,  \ 
was   also   the   friend  of  the   Dominicans.       As   soon   as   he 
becomes   bishop    of    Lincoln,    in    1235,    he    writes    to    the 
provincial  prior,  and  afterwards  to  the  provincial  prior  and 
the  definitores  sitting  in  provincial  chapter  at  York,  to  ask 
for  the  attendance  of  two  friars,  John  of  St.  Giles  and  another,/  / 
for  the  ensuing  year.      He  seems  to  have  had  two  Dominican 
friars   in   regular  attendance:    in   1242  he  complains  to  the 
provincial  prior  that  they  are  frequently  changed.     What  he 
did  himself  he  would  have  had  Canterbury  do:    in  1245  ^^ 
writes  to  a  cardinal  to  urge  that  the  archbishop  should  be  sup- 
ported on  either  hand  by  friars  from  the  two  Orders,  who 
alone  can  give  such  support  as  he  needs.^^      The  archbishop 
who  succeeded  Boniface  was  himself  a  Dominican  ;  Kilwardby, 
Archbishop  of  Canterbury  from  1273  to  1278,  had  been  Pro- 
vincial Prior.      Eleanor  of  Castile,  the  wife  of  Edward  I,  was 
greatly  attached  to  the  Order,  and  contemplated  the  founda- 
tion of  a  convent  of  Sisters,  which  was  eventually  founded  by 
her  grandson  Edward  III.      From  all  this  it  is  plain  that  the  ■ 
Dominicans   and  their   institutions  were  well  known  in  the 
central  places  of  England,  at  Oxford  and  at  London  ;  we  can  see' 
that  the  heads  of  Church  and  of  State,  Langton  and  Kilwardby^    > 
de  Montfort  and  Edward  I,  were  familiar  with  the  Order.       * 

Meanwhile  much  was  done  by  English  Dominicans  in  the   \ 
realm  of  learning.^^     We  read  of  nearly  a  dozen  writers  and 
commentators  in  this  century.     Kilwardby,  representing  the 

^'  Grosseteste,  Epistolae^  pp.  59-61,  305,  336.    Trivet,  Annates,  s.a.  1253. 

^^  See  Ehrle-Denifle,  Archiv,  ii.  227  sqq. ;  Remont,  Simon  de  Montfort, 
p.  85  ;  and  Mandonnet,  363  sqq.  Dominican  studies  were  arranged 
on  the  following  plan.  In  each  convent  there  was  a  doctor,  who  gave 
lectures  which  all  the  friars,  even  the  prior,  must  attend,  and  which  secular 
clerks  could  attend  :  larger  convents  were  termed  sttidia  sottennia.  The 
studium  generate  in  a  University  was  conducted  by  a  master  or  regent, 
and  two  bachelors,  one  d^bibticus,  who  lectured  for  a  year  on  the  Bible,  the 
other  a  sententiarius,  who  lectured  for  two  years  on  the  Sentences.  The 
work  done  by   the  Dominicans   on   biblical   concordances  and  on   the 


30         THE   DOMINICANS   AND   LEARNING 

\        /   old  Augustinian  and  pre-Thomist  tradition,  wrote  on  Aristotle's 

\  /     Organon  (including  the  Prior  and  Posterior  Analytics) ;    on 

\a      Aristotle's  physical  and  metaphysical  writings  (including  the 

\      De  Animd) ;    on  Priscian ;    on   the  Sentences  of  Peter  the 

/  \     Lombard ;  on  the  unity  of  forms,  on  the  origin  and  division 

/     V  of  knowledge,  and  on  the  nature  of  relation.^^     William,  after- 

T    ^'\ wards  Archbishop  of  Dublin  (11298),  wrote  on  the  first  book 

y^   of  the  Sentences,  on  the  unity  of  forms,  and  on  the  immediate 

vision  of  the  Divine  Essence.     Thomas  de  Sutton  attempted 

a  concord  of  the  books  of  St.  Thomas,  and  commented  on 

Aristotelian  Logic  and  the  Psalter.     John  of  St.  Giles,  the 

friend  of  Grosseteste,  who  was  already  a  Master  in  Theology 

when  he  assumed  the  Dominican  habit  in  the  midst  of  a  sermon 

on  poverty,  was  the  first  professor  in  the  School  of  St.  Edward.^^ 

'  >— -    Maurice  of  England  wrote  a  book  oi Distinctiones  as  an  aid  for 

/I     t)f(e  composition  of  sermons.     One  of  the  English  Dominicans 
\     ^rote  postillae  on  St.  Paul,  another   on   Isaiah,   a  third  on 
\  /Ecclesiastes  ;  two  of  them  wrote  to  vindicate  Aquinas  against 
y  attack  ;    three    English    Dominicans    composed    a    Biblical 
A  Concordance.^*      Nor   should  we  forget   Robert  Bacon   the 
/  \  Dominican,  obscured  by  the  fame  of  his  relative  and  namesake 
/     \Roger,or  his  friend  Richard  Fitzacker  or  Fishacre, commentator 
on  the  Sentences.^^ 

exegesis  of  the  Sentences  was  the  fruit  of  such  lectures.  It  is  this 
organization  of  studies  which  has  led  one  writer  to  call  St.  Dominic  *  the 
/  first  minister  of  public  instruction  in  Europe'. 

^"^  It  was  the  Thomist  doctrine  that  there  was  one  form  in  the  human 
composition.  Kilwardby's  treatise  on  the  origin  and  division  of  knowledge 
has  been  styled  *  the  most  important  introduction  to  philosophy  of  the 
Middle  Ages'. 

^'  Trivet,  Annales,  s.  a.  1222.  Trivet  says  John  was  Suavissimus 
moralizator  and  also  in  arte  medicinae  experiissimus :  he  had  lectured 
in  Montpellier  as  well  as  at  Paris.  Under  1223  Trivet  mentions  the  resigna- 
tion of  the  bishopric  of  Carlisle  by  Walter  Mauclerck  (some  years  after 
he  became  bishop  in  that  year)  and  his  entry  into  the  Order. 

"  These  concordances  are  still  used,  and  still  called  Concordantiae 
Angltcanae,  Bdmont,  ibid.  Mandonnet  dates  them  1250-75,  and  men- 
tions John  of  Darlington  as  their  chief  composer.  On  the  work  of  the 
Dominicans  in  Oxford  see  Rashdall,  The  Friars  Preachers  v.  the  University 
(Oxford  Historical  Series,  xvi,pp.  195  sqq.),and  Fletcher,  The  Black  Friars 
in  England.  An  interesting  question,  which  cannot  here  be  investigated, 
is  that  of  the  influence  of  the  Friars  on  the  growth  of  colleges  ;  cf.  Rashdall, 
Mediaeval  Universities^  i.  487,  and  Little,  Grey  Friars  ifi  Oxford^  p.  9. 

"  See  Addendum  I,  p.  'j'j. 


PART    II 

THE  ENGLISH  CONVOCATION 

Early  in  the  history  of  the  Church  we  find  the  Metro- 
politans convoking  and  presiding  over  provincial  councils  of 
bishops.  Before  the  twelfth  century  these  assemblies  are  not 
purely  ecclesiastical  assemblies  ;  laymen  may  attend,  and  lay 
matters  may  be  transacted.^  In  the  course  of  that  century 
these  assemblies  acquire  a  specifically  and  exclusively  eccle- 
siastical character.^  *  The  restoration  of  discipline  is  generally 
the  object  of  their  deliberations  ;  or  their  purpose  may  be  the 
defence  of  the  rights  of  the  Church,  which  is  increasingly 
engaged  in  struggles  with  the  secular  power.*  ^  But  their 
powers  are  generally  inconsiderable  :  the  centralization  of  the 
Church  in  the  hands  of  the  Papacy  cannot  admit  of  any  great 
vigour  in  these  assemblies.*  Gratian  lays  it  down — Concilia 
sunt  invalida  ad  diffiniendum  et  constituendum^  non  autem  ad 
corrigendum.  Sunt  enim  necessaria  episcoporiim  concilia  ad 
exhortationem  et  correctionemJ*  In  composition  these  councils 
are  essentially  as  Gratian  says,  and  as  Eadmer  also  says  of 
English  councils  in  the  time  of  the  Conqueror,^  episcoporum 
concilia^  though  abbots  will  also  be  present,  along  with  other 
churchmen  of  importance  such  as  archdeacons,  deans,  and 

*  Cf.  Viollet,  op.  cit.y  i.  355-60;  ii.  354.  Viollet  remarks  that  the 
councils  which  enacted  the  Treuga  Dei  were  of  the  nature  of  'great 
popular  assizes  ',  which  laymen  and  even  women  attended.  The  Anglo- 
Saxon  polity  hardly  knows  a  distinction  between  the  ecclesiastical  council 
and  the  lay  assembly. 

*  For  the  reasons  of  this  development  in  England  see  Stubbs,  Con- 
stitutional History,  ii.  178-80. 

^  Viollet,  op.  cit.,  ii.  354. 

*  See  Moller,  Lehrbuch  der  Kirchengeschichte,  ii.  286,  306.  While  the 
Pope  acts  as  a  check  above,  the  cathedral  chapters  below  (claiming  to  be 
an  episcopal  presbyterium  and  the  representatives  of  the  diocesan  clergy) 
impose  another  Hmitation  (ibid.,  p.  307). 

^  Quoted  in  Viollet,  op.  cit.,  ii.  354.  But  the  disciplinary  power  over 
bishops  is  disappearing  in  1200,  see  Moller,  op.  cit.,  ii.  306. 

*'  Eadmer,  Hist.  Nov.  i.  6,  in  Stubbs,  Select  Charters,  p.  82.    « ^ 


32  CONCILIAR  ACTIVITY   AFTER   1215 

priors."'^  Above  these  provincial  synods  we  find  larger  synods 
from  a  number  of  provinces,  and  national  synods  from  all  the 
provinces  in  a  country ;  below  them  we  find  (side  by  side 
with  the  episcopal  chapter  which  represents  or  claims  to 
represent  the  clergy  of  a  diocese)  a  diocesan  synod  composed 
of  the  priests  and  even  the  deacons  of  a  diocese. 

By  the  end  of  the  twelfth  century  provincial  synods  were 
almost  becoming  extinct.  As  the  bishop  declined  in  power 
and  authority  (partly  because  he  took  more  interest  in  his  lay 
fief  than  in  his  spiritual  position,  partly  because  he  was  ousted 
by  the  growth  of  the  chapter  and  the  archdeacon),  so,  too,  did 
the  archbishop  ;  and  as  his  power  declined,  so  the  provincial 
synods,  which  he  convoked,  became  more  and  more  infrequent. 
Ceasing  to  *  find  themselves '  in  regular  synods,  the  provinces 
ceased  to  be  living  communities,  and  became  mere  aggregations 
of  bishoprics.^  A  revival,  however,  came  in  the  beginning  of 
the  thirteenth  century.  In  the  first  place  an  impulse  to  synodal 
activity  may  be  said  to  have  been  given  by  three  great  synods 
of  the  whole  Church — the  Fourth  Lateran  Council  in  12 15,  and 
the  two  Councils  at  Lyons  in  1245  ^"<^  1274.  The  composition 
of  these  great  councils  is  especially  noteworthy.  A  new  step 
is  taken  when  Innocent  III,  in  summoning  the  Fourth  Lateran 
Council,  asks  bishops  to  enjoin  the  chapters  of  churches,  not 
only  cathedral  but  others,  to  send  their  provost  or  dean  or 
other  suitable  men  on  their  behalf^  since  some  things  are  to  be 
treated  which  will  specially  pertain  to  chapters.^  Here  is 
representation  in  the  highest  assembly  of  the  Church — repre- 
sentation, indeed,  not  of  the  community  of  the  diocese,  but  at 

'^  Viollet,  op.  at.,  ii.  354;  Makower,  Constit.  Hist,  of  the  Church 
of  Engtand  (Eng.  trans.),  p.  359. 

•^  Hauck,  Kirchengeschichte  Deutschtands,  iv.  17.  The  mediaeval 
communities  naturally  found  their  centre  of  unity  and  source  of  life  in  the 
courts  in  which  they  issued.  The  shire  is  a  community  in  and  through 
the  shire-court — the  borough  in  and  through  the  borough-court.  Indeed  we 
may  say  that  the  shire  is  the  shire-court :  the  same  word  comitatus  covers 
both.  The  shire  ceases  to  be  a  living  community  of  persons,  and  sinks 
into  a  geographical  expression  as  the  shire-court  decays. 

^  Labbe  and  Cossart,  Concitia,  xi.  i,  124.  This  may  be  regarded  as 
the  first  germ  oi  onr  prae7numentes  clause.  Hefele,  History  of  Councils^ 
i.  21-2,  says  that  deputies  of  chapters  appeared  in  Councils  as  early 
as  516  (at  the  Council  of  Tarragona).  But  the  Fourth  Lateran  Council 
marks  a  new  epoch  for  the  Middle  Ages. 


THE  FOURTH  LATERAN  COUNCIL    33 

any  rate  of  the  community  of  the  chapter.  Similarly  in  1245 
Innocent  IV  enjoins  archbishops  to  bid  their  suffragans  come 
and  their  chapters  to  send  providi  mincii  et  fideles  qui  vice 
ipsorum  utile  nobis  consilium  largiantur ;  '^^  and  a  similar 
method  is  adopted  by  Gregory  X  in  1274  when  he  asks  for 
viri  idonei  from  chapters  of  churches,  both  cathedral  and 
others.^^  In  the  second  place,  the  Fourth  Lateran  Council 
expressly  enjoins,  in  its  sixth  canon,  the  observance  of  the  old 
canonical  custom  of  annual  provincial  synods  to  control  eccle- 
siastical life  and  to  secure  the  observance  of  ecclesiastical  law. 
'  Let  metropolitans  with  their  suffragans  omit  not  each  year 
to  celebrate  provincial  synods,  for  the  correction  of  excesses 
and  reformation  of  manners,  especially  in  the  clergy ;  and  let 
persons  be  appointed  to  investigate  what  needs  correction  and 
reformation  and  to  report  to  the  metropolitan  and  his  suffragans 
and  others  in  the  next  council,  that  they  may  proceed  with 
prudent  deliberation  and  cause  to  be  observed  what  they  have 
enacted,  publishing  their  enactments  in  episcopal  synods  to  be 
celebrated  yearly  in  each  diocese.'  ^^  Of  itself  the  re-enactment 
is  of  no  great  importance,  and  by  itself  it  would  not  have 
achieved  much.  But  the  tendency  of  events  made  for  the 
revival  of  such  synods.  In  Germany  the  comparative  fre- 
quency of  provincial  synods  from  1230  to  1310^^  is  ascribed 
by  the  historian  of  the  German  Church  partly  to  the  disuse 
during  the  reign  of  Frederic  II  of  synods  called  by  the  king, 

"  Ibid.,  xi.  I.  636. 

"  Ibid.,  xi.  I.  941. 

"  Ibid.,  p.  153.  The  twelfth  canon  (pp.  163-5)  is  also  important.  It 
commands  triennial  chapters  to  be  held  in  each  kingdom  or  province 
of  abbots  and  priors  who  have  not  been  accustomed  to  hold  such  chapters. 
This  refers  to  the  Benedictine  abbeys,  who  are  here  commanded  to 
modify  their  principle  of  local  autonomy,  and  to  conform  to  the  Cistercian 
model.  Only  in  England  was  the  command  obeyed :  it  was  re-enacted 
by  the  legate  Otto  in  1238  in  a  meeting  of  the  Benedictine  abbots  at 
London  (Matt.  Paris,  iii.  508-10) ;  and  chapters  are  recorded  in  1225  (cf. 
Dugdale,  Mon.  AngL,  I.  xlvi)  and  in  1249  (Matt.  Paris,  vi.  175  sqq.).  But 
during  the  thirteenth  century  no  representatives  attend  these  meetings. 

"  Between  1230  and  131G  there  is  a  provincial  synod  in  one  province 
or  other  every  second  year  ;  between  13 10  and  1400  there  are  only  eight 
or  nine  provincial  synods  in  the  whole  of  Germany.  In  the  province  of 
Mainz  there  are  ten  provincial  synods  from  1230  to  1310 :  there  are  none 
after  13 10  during  the  whole  of  the  fourteenth  century.  Hauck,  op.  cit.^ 
V.  I.  137-43- 


34  THE   COUNCIL   OF   BOURGES 

partly  to  the  example  of  the  national  synods  held  by  papal 
legates,  especially  Conrad  of  Porto.^*  It  must  be  noted,  how- 
ever, that  these  synods  dwindle  and  disappear  after  1310,  and 
that  in  their  composition  they  present  a  close  corporation  of 
bishops  and  other  prelates.  As  at  Magdeburg,  in  126 1,  bishops, 
abbots,  priors,  archdeacons,  and  other  prelates  of  churches 
form  the  synod :  there  is  very  little  trace  of  representation,"^^ 
and  what  representation  we  find  is  of  chapters  and  abbeys  and 
not  of  diocesan  clergy.  When  we  turn  to  France  we  find 
a  development  during  the  thirteenth  century  which  deserves 
especial  notice.  It  concerns  the  chapters  of  cathedrals.  The 
legatine  Council  of  Bourges  in  1225  is  the  first  stage  of  this 
development.  Here  we  see  the  influence  of  papal  pressure  on 
institutional  development  in  the  Church.  At  this  council  the 
legate  Romanus  put  forward  the  papal  demand,  made  in  the 
bull  Supra  muros  Jerusalem  (January  28,  1225),  for  prebends 
in  all  conventual  churches.  Proctors  of  chapters  had  been 
summoned,  as  the  matter  obviously  concerned  chapters.  But 
the  legate  gave  these  proctors  leave  to  depart,  keeping  only 
bishops  and  abbots.  The  proctors  protested ;  they  feared  that 
in  their  absence  ('  who  were  of  greater  prudence  and  experience, 
and  from  their  numbers  more  able  to  refuse ')  he  should  hold 
conference  with  each  chapter  severally,  and  not  with  all  in 
common,  and  so  should  determine  something  to  the  general 
prejudice.  They  expressed  their  surprise  that  he  had  not 
made  the  proposal  in  their  presence,  as  they  were  specially 
concerned,  and  they  warned  him  that,  if  some  consented,  there 
wourld  yet  be  no  real  consent  in  a  matter  which  concerned  all 
(a  reference  to  the  dictum  in  the  Institutes  afterwards  quoted  by 

"  Hauck,  op.  cit.^  iv.  17,  v.  I.  135-6. 

"  Hauck,  V.  I.  149,  n.  i,  writes:  *  Die  Halberstadt-Stifter  in  Aschaf- 
fenburg  waren  durch  Bevollmachtigte  vertreten,  die  vice  ac  nomine 
ojnniujn  handelten.  Es  wird  auch  anderwarts  so  gewesen  sein.'  In  the 
national  and  legatine  synod  at  Wiirzburg  in  1287  each  chapter  and  abbey 
was  to  be  represented  by  two  proctors  (ibid.,  v.  i.  172)  ;  and  in  diocesan 
synods  Siegfrid  of  Cologne  introduced  in  1280  representation,  by  one  or 
two  proctors,  of  the  members  of  chapters  and  collegiate  churches  (ibid., 
n.  2  ;  cf.  Labbe  and  Cossart,  xi.  i.  1108).  In  diocesan  synods  representa- 
tives of  capitular  clergy  already  appear  in  the  twelfth  century  (Hauck,  v. 
I.  172);  and  in  the  fourteenth  century  representatives  of  the  ordinary 
diocesan  clergy  begin  to  appear  (ibid.,  p.  173). 


ITS   IMPORTANCE  c^s 

Edward  I),  when  all,  subjects  as  well  as  their  kings  and  princes, 
were  ready  to  resist  to  the  death.^^ 

This  meeting  at  Bourges  is  especially  noteworthy  for  several 
reasons.  In  the  first  place,  it  shows  a  strong  feeling  of  the 
chapters  that  they  are  a  community  with  a  common  interest, 
which  must  be  expressed  by  the  common  voice  acting  through 
representatives.  The  root  idea  of  representation  is  clearly 
visible:  the  reference  to  the  dictum  qtwd  omnes  tangit  ab 
omnibus  approbetur  is  significant :  the  demand  of  the  chapters 
reminds  one  of  Edward  I's  substitution  of  consultation  with 
the  federated  shire-communities  for  separate  negotiations  with 
the  several  shire-courts.  In  the  second  place,  there  is  a  close 
connexion  between  the  French  assembly  and  the  first  meeting 
in  England  of  proctors  of  chapters  in  1116  (not,  as  Stubbs 
says,  1225)  •  the  same  papal  pressure  was  responsible  for  both, 
and  the  proceedings  of  the  French  assembly  formed  the  model 
for  those  of  the  English.  In  the  third  place,  this  use  of 
proctors  is  new  and,  as  far  as  I  know,  unprecedented  in 
France.  It  will  not  support  the  view,  which  it  is  used  by 
Stubbs  to  support,  that  '  the  procuratorial  system  had  long 
been  used  in  foreign  churches'.  As  far  as  I  can  discover, 
apart  from  one  or  two  instances  of  representation  of  collegiate 
churches  in  German  diocesan  synods  of  the  twelfth  century, 
the  first  great  instance  of  the  use  of  proctors  in  clerical 
assemblies  ^^  appears  in  the  summons  of  the  Fourth  Lateran 
Council  quoted  above.  Finally,  the  general  position  of  the 
chapter  in  the  economy  of  the  Church  demands  some  con- 
sideration.^^    Under  the  Carolingians  the  canons  of  cathedral 

"^^  See  Walter  of  Coventry,  ii.  227  (cited  in  Stubbs,  Const.  Hist.  ii.  207), 
and  also  Matt.  Paris,  iii.  105-9,  and  the  Register  of  S.  Osmund^  ii.  51-4. 
Not  only  do  English  writers  pay  heed  to  this  assembly  :  its  proceedings  were 
made  the  model  of  the  English  assembly  held  to  answer  the  same  papal 
demand  in  April,  1226.  The  papal  demand  was  then  r&ius^di  juxt a/or ma7n 
responsionis  in  concilio  apud Bituricas  [Reg.  S.  Osmund^  ij*  SO-  For  the 
proceedings  of  Bourges  cf.  also  Labbe  and  Cossart,  Cone.  xi.  i.  291-4. 

^'  No  doubt  clerical  proctors  had  appeared  to  represent  their  chapters 
or  abbeys,  in  business  at  Rome  that  concerned  the  individual  chapter  or 
abbey,  for  some  time  past.  But  I  am  here  speaking  of  joint  representation 
of  communities  in  a  clerical  assembly. 

'8  See  Hauck,  op.  cit.y  v.  i.  185-221 ;  cf.  also  Viollet,  op.  cit.^  ii.  356, 
and  on  the  English  chapters  Makower,  Const.  Hist,  of  the  Church  of 
England,  §  37. 


^e  THE   CATHEDRAL    CHAPTERS 

chapters  had  been  brought  under  the  rule  of  a  common  life : 
the  common  life  had  involved  the  allocation  of  separate 
revenues  for  its  support :  the  separate  revenues  had  brought 
to  the  chapter  first  a  share  in  the  administration,  and  then 
a  right  of  separate  administration,  of  the  properties  from  which 
they  came.  The  chapter  had  thus  by  the  thirteenth  century 
developed  into  a  corporation,  owning  property  and  electing  its 
own  members,  of  such  as  had  stallum  in  choro  et  votum  in 
capitulo.  As  such  it  became  practically  independent  of  the 
bishop :  it  elected  him ;  it  imposed  conditions  on  him  at  his 
election  ;  it  excluded  him  from  its  meetings ;  and  it  began  to 
share  with  him  control  of  the  diocese.  Meeting  twice  a  year 
in  its  general  chapter  (capitulmn  generate)  it  became  the  parlia- 
ment, as  it  were,  of  the  diocese.  The  old  presbyterium  or 
synod  of  diocesan  priests  still  subsisted  as  the  '  folk-moot '  of 
the  diocese  ;  but  the  real  presbyterium  was  the  permanent  and 
powerful  chapter.  The  Pope,  willing  to  check  the  bishops, 
fostered  the  chapter:  he  encouraged  both  its  right  to  elect 
the  bishop  and  its  claim  to  consent  to  his  acts.  The  common 
life  had  indeed  disappeared :  the  daily  chapter  {capitulum 
quotidianum)  iox  the  reading  of  the  rule  and  for  edification 
had  gone ;  the  canons  were  scattered  about,  busy  in  divers 
offices,  and  '  vicars  '  took  their  place  in  the  cathedral ;  but  the 
power  of  the  chapter  general  only  grew.  It  is  this  development 
which  explains  at  once  the  summoning  of  representatives  of 
the  chapters  by  Innocent  III,  and  the  tone  of  the  chapters  at 
the  Council  of  Bourges  in  1225.^^  Above  all,  the  separate 
financial  position  of  the  chapter,  its  corporate  ownership  of 
a  property  of  its  own,  will  explain  the  need  of  its  direct  con- 
sultation when  matters  of  finance  arise. 


^^  The  history  of  the  English  Church  seems  to  show  the  diocesan  clergy 
in  a  stronger  position.  We  must  remember  that  the  English  Church  was 
peculiar  in  having  a  large  number  of  monastic  chapters  which,  as  monastic, 
could  hardly  claim  to  represent  the  secular  clergy.  In  any  case  it  is 
striking  that  in  the  final  form  of  Convocation  in  the  province  of  Canterbury 
two  representatives  of  the  ordinary  clergy  of  each  diocese  sit  side  by  side 
with  one  representative  for  the  clergy  of  each  chapter.  The  protest  of  the 
Berkshire  rectors  in  1240,  and  the  complaint  of  the  beneficed  clergy  of  the 
archdeaconries  in  1255  that  a  tithe  has  been  given  without  their  being 
consulted,  point  the  way  to  this  development. 


THEIR   INCLUSION  IN  FRENCH   SYNODS     37 

Gradually  the  use  of  proctors  of  the  chapters  becomes 
common  in  the  provincial  synods  of  the  French  Church.  The 
position  which  the  chapters  have  attained  by  the  thirteenth 
century  demands  their  presence.  As  a  French  commune  is 
a  collective  seignory,  so  a  chapter  is,  as  it  were,  a  collective 
prelacy :  it  stands  in  the  ecclesiastical  hierarchy  by  the  side  of 
the  bishop  or  abbot.  It  is  a  corporation  owning  property ; 
it  is  an  elective  body  which  imposes  W ahlkapiUdationen  on 
its  nominee ;  it  is  the  equal,  almost  the  successor,  of  the 
diocesan  synod  ;  in  all  three  capacities  it  must  be  represented. 
The  province  of  Reims  shows  the  way.  "Here  there  is  a  peculiar 
development.  *The  chapters  of  the  province  federate  (1234- 
1428)  and  hold  regular  annual  assemblies.  These  chapters 
wish  to  defend  their  rights  and  privileges  against  the  arch- 
bishop and  his  suffragans;  they  wish  to  guarantee  their 
common  interests  by  union.' ^^  In  1277  this  produced  a 
counter-confederation  of  the  bishops.  In  a  council  of  the 
province  at  Compiegne  they  protested  against  the  '  damnable 
usurpations '  of  the  chapters,  and  bound  themselves  into  a  con- 
federacy to  meet  annually  at  Paris,  with  money  contributions 
on  behalf  of  the  common  cause.^^  It  was  perhaps  through  this 
struggle  that  the  chapters  gained  an  entry  into  the  provincial 
council  by  the  side  of  the  prelates.  Already  in  1235  synods 
of  the  province  at  St.  Quentin  and  at  Compiegne  are  attended 
not  only  by  bishops,  but  by  proctors  of  all  the  cathedral 
chapters  of  the  province ;  and  the  synods  protest  against  the 
attacks  of  the  king  on  the  liberties  of  the  province.  It  is 
attacks  on  the  chapter  which  come  first  in  their  complaints : 
the  king  has  outlawed  a  canon  of  Reims ;  he  has  seized  the 
property  and  otherwise  infringed  the  rights  of  the  chapter  of 
Soissons.^^  Here  it  is  royal  pressure,  as  in  1225  it  was  the 
pressure  of  the  Papacy,  which  brings  capitular  representation 
to  the  front.  Henceforth  the  chapters  seem  to  form  part  of 
the  provincial  synod.  In  1239  the  acts  of  the  provincial  synod 
of  Reims  are  dated  consentientibus  nobis  episcopis  .  .  .  inter- 

^^  Viollet,  Histoire  des  institutions,  ii.  356.      VioUet  does  not  mention 
the  counter-confederation  of  the  bishops. 
^^  Labbe  and  Cossart,  Cone,  xi.  i.  103 1-2. 
22  Ibid.,  p.  501-3. 

C3 


38  REPRESENTATION  IN  FRENCH  SYNODS 

veniente  etiam  consensu  procuratorum  capitulormn  ecclesiarmn 
cathedralium  provinciae  nostraeP  In  1:^71,  when  the  Bishop 
of  Soissons  held  a  council  during  a  vacancy  of  the  see  of 
Reims,  the  canons  of  Reims  disturbed  its  proceedings,  *  for- 
bidding any  suffragan  to  be  present,  when  they  had  not  been 
consulted,  and  had  not  given  permission  for  a  synod/  ^^  In 
1287  the  perennial  quarrel  of  the  clergy  with  the  friars  on 
the  hearing  of  confessions  led  to  a  provincial  synod  of  Reims, 
attended  by  proctors  of  cathedrals  and  other  collegiate  churches^ 
in  which  the  bishops  were  ordered  to  pay  one-twentieth  of 
their  revenue,  and  chapters  and  rectors  of  parochial  churches 
one-hundredth,  to  meet  the  expenses  of  their  cause.^^ 

In  other  French  provinces  the  same  development  is  to  be 
seen.  In  the  province  of  Narbonne  in  1246  the  archbishop 
promulgates  the  constitutions  of  a  synod  assensu  .  .  .  suffra- 
ganeorum  nostrorum  et  capittdi  nostriP'^  Here  the  archiepis- 
copal  chapter  alone  is  mentioned,  and  it  is  mentioned  as  if  it 
were  on  a  level  with  the  suffragans.^^  In  1255  the  synod  of 
Narbonne  is  attended  by  bishops,  abbots,  many  archdeacons, 
precentors  and  other  ecclesiastical  persons.^^  Here  there  is  no 
mention  of  any  chapter;  but  in  1280  we  hear  of  episcopal 
chapters,  and  not  as  in  1246  of  the  archiepiscopal  chapter  only. 
A  chapter  writes  to  inform  the  archbishop  that  it  has  elected 
a  proctor  to  attend  the  synod  *  to  hear  discussion  of  business 
touching  the  whole  province,  and  to  do  what  seems  good  to 
the  synod ',  and  that  it  will  hold  firm  and  valid  whatever  the 

'^^  Labbe  and  Cossart,  op.  cit.,  xi.  i.  569.  ^^  Ibid.,  p.  922. 

"  Ibid.,  xi.  2.  1317-18.  Whether  the  proctors  of  chapters  were  always 
present  at  synods  of  the  province  of  Reims,  or  only  attended  on  special 
occasions,  I  cannot  say.  In  1304  (Labbe  and  Cossart,  xi.  2.  1493)  there 
are  only  bishops  present :  in  131 7  (ibid.,  1625)  the  deans  and  chapters  of 
cathedral  churches  attend  through  proper  proctors.  In  1326  (ibid.,  1769) 
proctors  of  cathedral  churches  are  present ;  and  on  the  whole  their 
presence  seems  to  be  the  rule. 

26  Ibid.,  xi.  1.677. 

*'^  This  form  I  have  also  noticed  in  the  German  Church  at  Cologne.  In 
13 10  the  archbishop  promulgates  statutes  de  capituli  et  praeiatorinn 
nostrorum  consilio  et  assensu  (Labbe  and  Cossart,  xi.  2.  1517) ;  and  again 
in  1324  he  enacts  de  consilio  et  consensu  7tostri  capituli  Coloniensis  ac 
vetierabilitim  patruni  (ibid.,  p.  1708).  Here  the  archiepiscopal  chapter 
comes  before  the  bishops  of  the  province. 

"^  Labbe  and  Cossart,  xi.  i.  753. 


THE  FORM  OF  THE  FRENCH  SYNOD   39 

proctor  shall  do.^^  Again  in  1299  proctors  of  chapters  attend 
a  synod  of  the  Narbonne  provlnce.^^  A  synod  of  1374 
especially  deserves  attention.  The  archbishop  had  been 
armed  by  a  letter  and  three  bulls  from  Gregory  XI,  authoriz- 
ing him  to  summon  even  exempt  abbots  and  prelates  to  the 
synod.  Accordingly  he  addressed  a  summons  to  his  suffragans 
(i)  enjoining  their  attendance;  (2)  commanding  them  to 
summon  to  attend  in  person  all  clergy  who  of  use,  custom,  or 
law,  ought  to  attend  in  person,  and  to  summon  chapters, 
colleges,  and  convents  to  attend  through  proctors,  syndics,  or 
oeconomi^  appointed  for  the  purpose,  with  sufficient  and  special 
mandate ;  and  (3)  ordering  them  to  hold  diocesan  synods  to 
deliberate  in  advance  on  the  business  of  the  provincial  synod. 
The  synod  was  held  :  its  constitutions  are  promulgated  in 
the  following  terms  :  *  We  the  archbishop,  the  bishops  present, 
the  proctors  of  the  absent  bishops,  with  our  venerable  chapter 
of  Narbonne,  celebrating  a  provincial  council  .  .  .  with  proctors 
also  of  others  our  venerable  chapters  absent,  of  abbots,  chapters, 
priors,  colleges,  and  many  other  ecclesiastics,  exempt  and 
non- exempt,  even  friars,  and  of  other  orders  whatsoever  of  our 
province,  ordain  .  .  .'  and  so  forth.^^  This  summons  seems 
almost  parallel  to  Peckham's  summons  of  the  'Model  Con- 
vocation' of  1283,  though  it  is  perhaps  a  uniquely  large 
assembly.  Here,  as  everywhere  else,  the  one  thing  that 
differentiates  the  churches  of  the  Continent  from  those  of 
England  is  the  absence  of  proctors  of  the  diocesan  clergy. 
Nor  is  there,  apparently,  any  such  regular  rule  or  *  canon ' 
determining  the  composition  of  provincial  synods  in  France 

2°  Ibid.,  p.  1 126.  In  1279  the  Archbishop  of  Narbonne  had  asked  the 
abbots,  priors,  chapters,  and.  convents  of  his  province  to  set  their  seal  to  a 
power  of  attorney  {procuratoriutn)  authorizing  him  to  treat  at  a  parlia- 
ment '  in  France '  about  fiefs,  arri^re- fiefs,  alods,  the  army,  and  other 
grievances  which  touched  the  common  state  of  the  monasteries  and 
churches  (ibid.,  p.  1062). 

'^  Ibid.,  xi.  2.  1430. 

^^  Ibid.,  pp.  2493-9.  One  notices  that  the  chapter  of  the  archbishop  is 
mentioned  apart  from  other  chapters,  and  along  with  the  archbishop  and 
his  suffragans  (as  if  all  its  members  attended) :  it  forms  part  as  it  were  of 
the  inner  ring,  as  apparently  before  in  1246.  The  phrase  proctors^ 
syndics,  oeconomi  is  apparently  borrowed  from  the  royal  chancery. 
Philip  IV  in  1302  summoned  ecclesiarum  urbiumque  oeconomos  syndicos 
et  procurator es» 


40  DIOCESAN  CLERGY  NOT  INCLUDED  IN  SYNODS 

as  that  of  1283  in  England.  In  the  province  of  Tours,  for 
instance,  chapters  are  summoned  in  1294  i^^  [^  j^j^  |-j^g 
preamble  of  the  constitutions  of  another  synod  runs — '  those 
having  been  summoned  who  ought  to  be  summoned,  and  those 
being  present  who  wished  or  were  able  to  be  present,  we  have 
ordained  by  the  counsel  and  consent  of  our  suffragans  and 
abbots.'  ^^ 

On  the  whole,  we  may  lay  it  down  that  the  presence  of 
representatives  of  chapters  in  provincial  synods  was  common 
in  France  by  the  fourteenth  century. ^^  We  must  remember 
that  by  1302  the  meetings  of  the  States  General  had  begun. 
To  these  meetings  chapters  were  summoned  to  send  proctors 
by  royal  letters  addressed  directly  to  the  dean  and  chapter. "-^ 
The  parochial  clergy,  not  possessing  temporalities  or  juris- 
diction, were  not  summoned  either  in  person  or  through 
proctors.^^  The  chapters,  collective  seignories  as  well  as 
collective  prelacies,  enter  the  States  General  as  well  as  the 
provincial  synod :  the  ordinary  clergy  attend  neither.  In 
Spain,  also,  in  the  fourteenth  century,  proctors  of  chapters 
attend  provincial  synods.  They  are  present  in  the  province 
of  Toledo  in  1302;^"^  and  a  council  of  1324  definitely 
enacts,  in  order  that  fuller  information  may  be  had,  that 
chapters  of  cathedral  churches  shall  send  fit  proctors  in- 
formed of  the  state  of  their  churches. ^^  In  Germany  we 
have  already  seen  that  representation  of  any  sort  is  not 
frequent.     There  are  two  proctors  from  chapters  and  abbeys 

^2  Labbe  and  Cossart,  op.  cit,  p.  1395.  "  Vd\^.^  p.  1617. 

^*  In  the  province  of  Auch  proctors  of  all  chapters  of  cathedral  and 
collegiate  churches  attend  at  Beziers  in  1290  (Labbe  and  Cossart,  xi.  2. 
1363),  and  again  in  131 5  (ibid.,  p.  1621).  In  the  province  of  Aries 
a  proctor  of  the  dean  and  chapter  of  one  cathedral,  a  proctor  of  the 
bishop,  dean  and  chapter  of  another,  and  three  proctors  of  cathedral 
churches  attend  in  1288  (ibid.,  p.  1336).  At  a  joint  synod  of  three 
provinces  at  Avignon  in  1326  proctors  of  the  chapters  of  the  provinces 
appear  (ibid.,  p.  1 71 9). 

J^  VioUet,  op.  ciL,  iii.  187-8. 

"*  Stubbs,  Const.  Hist.  ii.  180,  n.  2;  210,  n.  2.  Exceptionally  the 
vi^hole  clergy  of  a  diocese,  regular  and  secular,  may  join  to  elect  their 
deputies,  as  at  Bourges  in  1308;  but  only  the  important  dignitaries 
attend ;  all  the  clergy  of  the  diocese  are  not  summoned — that  would  be 
too  slow  and  costly,  Viollet,  op.  cit.^  iii.  188. 

^'  Labbe  and  Cossart,  xi.  2.  2445. 

'^  Ibid.,  p.  1714. 


THE   COUNCIL   OF  VIENNE  41 

at  the  legatine  Council  at  Wiirzburg  in  1^187  ;  the  chapter  of 
Cologne  acts  along  with  the  suffragans  in  the  synods  of  the 
province  in  1310  and  1324  ;  the  Archbishop  of  Cologne  enacts 
in  1 280  that  proctors  of  chapters  and  collegiate  churches  shall 
attend  diocesan  synods,  and  in  the  fourteenth  century  diocesan 
synods  begin  to  include  representatives  of  the  ordinary  clergy. 
But  on  the  whole  *  the  bishops  and  prelates  of  ecclesiastical 
provinces  acted  in  the  provincial  synods  as  an  exclusive 
corporation  '.^^  The  constitutional  development  of  the  pro- 
vincial organization  of  the  Church  went  further  in  France  than 
elsewhere  on  the  Continent ;  but  ft  went  no  further  than 
representation  of  the  cathedral  clergy.  A  study  of  the  pro- 
ceedings in  the  different  churches  at  the  time  of  the  Council 
of  Vienne  (1311)  for  the  suppression  of  the  Templars  gives  us 
interesting  results.  In  the  first  place,  the  Pope  does  not 
summon,  as  in  1215,  1245,  and  1274,  representatives  of  the 
chapters  to  the  general  council  ;  he  summons  from  each 
province  the  archbishop  and  a  number  of  the  bishops  to 
represent  the  whole  province."*^  In  the  second  place,  we  may 
notice  in  the  different  provincial  synods  which  are  held  in  1310 
to  prepare  the  way  for  the  general  council  some  interesting 
differences.  In  England  Winchelsea  summons  to  London  the 
ordinary  representative  convocation  (including  proctors  of 
cathedrals  and  of  the  diocesan  clergy).*^  Other  synods  are 
held  for  Italy,  Spain,  Germany,  and  France  in  the  provinces 
of  Ravenna,  Toledo,  Mainz,  and  Sens.  At  Ravenna  there 
attend  bishops,  two  Dominicans  and  a  Franciscan  who  are 
inquisitors  in  the  province,  a  rural  dean  for  the  sacrati  viri  of 
Modena,  a  prior  for  the  bishop  and  sacrati  viri  of  Parma.^^ 
In  the  province  of  Toledo  bishops  attended ;  ^^  and  at  Sens 
and  Mainz  bishops  also  apparently  formed  the  council. 
Here  we  find  councils  in  England,  Italy,  Spain,  France,  and 
Germany ;  but  in  England  alone  do  we  find  meeting  a  real 
and  regularly  organized  representive  body. 

We  turn  to  the  provincial  synod  of  Canterbury  and  York, 

^^  Hauck,  op.  cit.,  v.  i.  149. 

*<*  Labbe  and  Cossart,  xi.  2.  1507,  1543. 

*^  Ibid.,  pp.  1511-12.  "2  Ibid.,  p.  1533. 

^3  Ibid.,  p.  1535. 


42     DEVELOPMENT   OF  THE   ENGLISH   SYNOD 

and  to  the  history  of  our  own  Convocation.  Before  1226 
there  is  no  representative  element  in  these  synods.  In  1207, 
when  John  attempted  to  exact  from  the  clergy  a  tax  on  their 
spiritualities,  it  was  to  bishops  and  abbots  only  that  he  put 
forward  the  demand.  There  were  no  representative  members 
at  the  assembly  of  *  religious  *  on  which  John  imposed  a  heavy 
fine  in  1210.'**  The  assembly  at  St.  Paul's  in  1213,  at  which 
Stephen  Langton  produced  the  charter  of  Henry  I,  contained 
bishops,  abbots,  priors,  and  deans.*^  In  1 225  Stephen  Langton 
cites  bishops,  abbots,  priors,  deans,  and  archdeacons.^^  Only 
in  1226,  five  years  after  the  settlement  of  the  Dominicans  in 
England,  does  Stephen  Langton  at  last  summon  not  only 
bishops,  abbots,  priors,  deans,  and  archdeacons,  but  also 
proctors  from  each  chapter  of  cathedral  and  prebendal  churches 
and  monasteries  and  other  religious  and  collegiate  houses, 
who  are  all  to  attend  with  full  instructions.*^  Abbots,  priors, 
and  deans  are  no  longer  to  come  alone,  we  perceive,  but  each 
is  to  bring  a  socms  from  the  body  of  which  he  is  head,  just  as 
the  conventual  priors  in  the  Dominican  Order  came  to  the 
provincial  chapter  each  accompanied  by  a  representative  of 
his  chapter.  From  1226  we  may  leap  forward  to  the  beginning 
of  the  reign  of  Edward  I.  A  Dominican,  Kilwardby,  once 
provincial  prior  of  his  Order,  is  now  on  the  throne  of  Canter- 
bury.    In    1273    he   summons   not   only  capitular,   but  also 

**  Venerunt  .  ,  .  ad  hanc  generalem  cojivocationem  abbates,  prioreSy 
Templarii  Hospitalarii  custodes  villarum  ordinis  Cluniacensis,  Matt. 
Paris,  p.  230,  in  Stubbs,  Select  Charters^  p.  274. 

^^  Matt.  Paris,  p.  240,  in  Stubbs,  Select  Charters,  p.  277. 

*'  Wilkins,  Concilia,  i.  558.  The  archdeacons  may  be  regarded  as 
representative  of  the  diocesan  clergy,  and  the  deans  of  the  capitular 
clergy.  The  representative  character  of  the  former  is  sometimes  definitely 
emphasized.  In  1258  the  archdeacons  were  summoned  with  letters 
procuratorial  from  their  clergy  (Stubbs,  Select  Charters,  p.  454) ;  and 
in  1240  we  find  archdeacons  prominent.  In  that  year  the  legate  as- 
sociated with  the  Papal  collector  Petrus  Rubeus  summons  the  bishops 
to  ask  for  money.  The  bishops  say,  '  We  have  archdeacons  subject 
to  us,  who  know  the  means  of  the  beneficed  clergy  subject  to  them : 
we  do  not.  Oinnes  tangit  hoc  tiegotium  :  oinnes  igitur  sunt  conveniendi  : 
sine  ipsis  nee  decet  nee  expedit  respondere?  The  bishops  a^id  arch- 
deacons then  meet  to  give  a  reply  to  the  legate  (Matt.  Paris,  iv.  37).  The 
clerical  use  of  the  argument  quod  oinnes  tangit  reminds  us  of  the  assembly 
at  Bourges  in  1225. 

*''  Wilkins,  Concilia,  i.  602,  quoted  in  Stubbs,  Select  Charters,  p.  453. 


CONNEXION  WITH  THE  DOMINICAN  MODEL  43 

diocesan  clergy,  not  only  some  greater  persons  from  each 
chapter,  but  also  proctors  of  all  the  clergy  of  each  diocese.^ ^ 
The  archdeacon  now  brings  his  socitis  also.  The  last  step  of 
all  is  taken  by  Peckham,  a  Franciscan  friar,  who  summon 
the  Model  Convocation  of  the  province  of  Canterbury  in  tne 
year  1383.  Bishops,  abbots,  priors,  and  other  heads  of 
religious  houses,  deans  of  cathedral  and  collegiate  churches, 
and  archdeacons  are  all  to  appear  in  person  or  by  proctors; 
and  the  bishops  are  to  assemble  and  instruct  their  diocesan 
clergy,  so  that  from  each  diocese  two  proctors  in  the  name  of 
the  clergy,  and  from  each  chapter  of  cathedral  and  collegiate 
churches  one  proctor,  may  be  sent  with  sufficient  instructions, 
having  full  and  express  power  of  treating  and  consenting.*^ 
Dean  and  archdeacon  now  both  appear  with  their  socii^  who 
are  proctors  with  full  power ;  the  evolution  is  complete.  In 
York  the  evolution  is  slightly  different :  here  each  arch- 
deaconry sends  two  proctors,  and  here  the  Model  Convocation 
is  as  early  as  1280.^^ 
/  It  would  be  absurd  to  suggest  that  this  evolution  is  entirely 
[  due  to  imitation  of  the  Dominican  model.  It  is  only  suggested 
^hat  it  IS  significant  that  the  first  step^houimiave  teen  taken 
by  Langton,  the  friend  of  the  Dominicans,  and  that  the  final 
steps  should  have  been  taken  by  two  friars,  the  one  belonging 
to  the  Dominican,  the  other  to  the  Franciscan  Order,  in  which 
the  Dominican  system  had  been  adopted  and  in  which  the  pro- 
vincial chapters  were  composed  of  custodes  each  accompanied 
by  a  discretus  elected  by  all  the  friars  of  the  convent.  But  if 
the  institutions  of  the  friars  perhaps  supplied  a  model,  there 
must  have  been  some  motive  force  which  impelled  the  Church 
to  the  adoption  of  that  model.  And  this  motive  force  may  be 
found  in  the  need  of  meeting  the  demands  which  both  the  Papacy 

*^  Wilkins,  Concilia^  ii.  30,  quoted  in  Stubbs,  Select  Charters^  pp.  455-6. 
Representatives  of  the  diocesan  clergy  had  attended  before,  as  we  shall 
see,  in  the  period  1254-8. 

*^  Wilkins,  Concilia,  ii.  93,  quoted  in  Stubbs,  Select  Charters^  p.  467. 

^^  Stubbs,  Const.  Hist,  ii.  207.  But  there  are  difficulties  about  this 
assembly  of  1280,  and  I  am  not  quite  sure  that  it  can  be  regarded  as 
a  model ;  cf.  infra^  P-  65  and  note  132.  In  any  case  the  assembly  met  in 
1280,  and  not  in  1279  (though  it  was  summoned  in  that  year),  and  Stubbs's 
date  (1279)  must  therefore  be  altered. 


44  THE  ENGLISH  CHURCH  UNDER  HENRY  HI 

and  the  English  Crown  made  on  the  Church  during  the  reign 
of  Henry  HI,  and  which  the  Crown  still  continued  to  urge  in 
the  reign  of  Edward  I. 

The  English  Church  in  the  reign  of  Henry  HI  was  in  a  some- 
what peculiar  position.  The  Pope  was  twice  overlord  of 
England,  once  as  spiritual  head  of  the  Church,  and  once  as 
temporal  overlord  since  John's  submission.  This  double 
power  was  used,  already  in  the  pontificate  of  Honorius  HI, 
and  still  more  under  his  successor  Gregory  IX,  to  make 
England  a  milch-cow.  On  the  plea'  of  a  Crusade  taxes  were 
imposed,  intended  for  clergy  and  laity  alike,  but  falling  in  the 
issue  on  the  clergy ;  while  under  the  shadow  of  his  right  of 
provisio^^  (and especially  of  the  provision  Q-Ktrcls&d  jure prae- 
ventionisy  which  included  reservations  and  expectatives)  the 
Pope  had  begun  to  interfere  with  patronage  and  prebends. 
Rex  .  .  ./actus  est  baculus  arundifteus,  as  Matthew  Paris  more 
than  once  says :  the  clergy  found  that  they  were  like  sheep 
given  over  to  ravening  wolves  with  the  king's  connivance. 
Henry  preferred  sharing  with  the  Pope  to  defending  the  Church ; 
and  the  Church  was  thrown  on  itself.  It  had  to  reply  as 
a  whole,  through  some  organized  representation  of  itself,  to 
the  demands  which  first  the  Pope,  then  the  Pope  and  king, 
and  finally  under  Edward  I  the  king  by  himself  were  constantly 
making.  The  principle  quod  oinnes  tangit  ab  omjtibus  appro- 
betur  already  alleged  in  France  in  i  %%$^  and  urged  in  England 
in  1240,  had  to  receive  its  full  expression. 

We  may  first  study  the  illustration  given  by  the  events  of 
the  years  12^25  and  1226.  Early  in  1225,  on  February  2, 
a  council  at  London  had  granted  a  fifteenth  of  all  movables 
praeterqiiam  de  ecclesiis,  in  return  for  a  confirmation  of  the 
charters.^^  Honorius  III  had  apparently  been  approached  by 
the  king  beforehand,  and  at  the  same  time,  February  3,  he 
wrote  to  the  English  Church,  commanding  that  it  should  pay 
a  competent  subsidy  according  to  the  means  of  its  churches.^^ 

^^  See  Stubbs,  Const.  Hist.  iii.  313  sqq.,  and  especially  p.  320,  n.  i. 
^'^  Walter  of  Coventry,  ii.  256  ;  Matt.  Paris,  iii.  91-2. 
°^  Walter  of  Coventry,  ii.  256-7.     The  letter  is  also  printed  from  the 
Salisbury  Register  in  Wilkins,  Concil.  i.  603-4. 


THE  PAPACY  AND  ENGLISH  CHURCH  IN  1225    45 

In  the  same  year  two  other  matters  drew  the  attention  of  the 
Pope  to  England.  Fawkes  de  Breaute  had  appealed  to  him, 
and  he  sent  a  nuncio,  Otto,  with  letters  of  intercession  on  his 
behalf/*  But  Otto  was  also  the  bearer  of  other  letters.  He 
brought  the  bull  of  January  28,  1225,  Stipra  muros  Jerusalem^ 
in  which  a  demand  was  made  for  one  prebend  in  each  cathedral 
and  collegiate  church,  and  for  a  certain  revenue  from  all 
religious  houses — the  bull  which  the  legate  Romanus  had  put 
before  the  French  Church  at  Bourges.  The  English  Church 
had  thus  to  face  two  demands  from  Honorius,  one  for 
a  subsidy  for  Henry,  another  for  contributions  to  the  Papal 
See.  Early  in  1225  (the  letter  is  not  dated)  Stephen  Langton 
sent  a  letter  to  all  the  bishops,  warning  them  to  induce  their 
clergy  to  grant  an  aid,  according  to  the  papal  command,  from 
the  sources  on  which  the  fifteenth  had  not  been  levied,  and  so 
to  make  a  virtue  of  necessity .^^  Nothing,  however,  seems  to 
have  been  done  in  1225,  whether  owing  to  the  reluctance  of 
the  bishops  to  act,  or  to  the  coming  of  the  nuncio,  which  may 
have  suggested  that  they  should  wait  for  the  results  of  his 
mission.  At  the  end  of  1225,  however,  Stephen  sent  a 
summons  to  his  suffragans  to  come  to  London  on  the  morrow 
(?  octave)  of  Epiphany,  January  7  (?  13),  1226,  with  their  deans 
and  archdeacons  and  with  abbots  and  priors  of  convents.^^ 
The  business  was  the  discussion  of  the  demands  made  in  the 
bull  Supra  muros  Jerusalem.  The  king,  however,  was  lying 
ill  at  Marlborough,  and  the  archbishop  and  several  of  the 
bishops  were  absent.  The  council  accordingly,  through  the 
mouth  of  the  archdeacon  of  Bedford,  replied  that  in  their 
absence  they  could  not  and  ought  not  to  give  any  answer  on 
a  matter  that  touched  the  king,  all  patrons  of  churches,  and 


"  Walter  of  Coventry,  ii.  272-4. 

^  Ibid.,  p.  257  ;  Wilkins,  i.  603-4. 

^^  Matt.  Paris,  iii.  102-3  ;  Wilkins,  i.  558,  602,  603.  Matthew  Paris 
dates  the  council  on  the  Feast  of  St.  Hilary,  which  is  the  octave  of 
Epiphany,  and  that  is  the  date  in  Wilkins,  i.  558  (January  13).^  But 
in  "Wilkins,  i.  602,  and  the  Reg,  S.  Osmund^  ii.  46,  the  date  given  is  the 
morrow  of  Epiphany. 

^^  Stephen  had  gone  to  see  the  king  at  Marlborough  (Wilkins,  i.  559; 
Register  of  St.  Osmutid^  ii.  45),  perhaps  to  concert  a  policy  with  the  king 
and  his  advisers  in  the  face  of  Otto. 


m- 


46        LANGTON  AND    THE    NUNCIO   OTTO 

innumerable  prelates.  Otto  sought  to  fix  a  time  for  another 
meeting,  but  he  failed  to  secure  the  consent  of  the  council. 
The  failure  of  this  council  led  to  the  summoning  of  a  new 
council,  in  which  representation  was  adopted  on  the  model  of 
the  council  at  Bourges  the  year  before.  Stephen  sent  a  new 
summons,  which  was  received  at  Salisbury  at  the  beginning  of 
March.  Not  only  were  bishops,  abbots  not  exempt,  priors, 
deans,  and  archdeacons  to  attend ;  but  each  chapter  was  to 
send  proctors,  as  well  of  cathedral  as  of  prebendal  churches  and 
of  monasteries  and  other  religious  and  collegiate  houses,  to  be 
present,  to  deliberate  and  to  come  fully  instructed  to  answer 
the  legate.  The  meeting  was  fixed  at  London  for  April  26. 
In  the  interval  Stephen  had  been  active.  He  had  procured 
from  Rome  letters  recalling  Otto :  while  the  nuncio  was 
travelling  North  in  Lent  (Easter  Day  in  1236  fell  on  April  19), 
he  received  the  letters  at  Northampton,  read  them  askance, 
threw  them  into  the  fire,  and  left  England  in  confusion  with 
his  wallet  empty .^^  We  can  now  understand  the  absence  of 
Stephen  from  the  council  of  January  ;  he  had  been  negotiating 
with  Honorius.  The  letters  he  had  obtained  from  Honorius 
commanded  him  to  summon  a  new  council  and  therein  to 
gain  an  answer  himself  to  the  papal  demand.  This  will 
explain  the  new  summons  received  at  Salisbury  at  the  begin- 
ning of  March  ;  and  it  is  thus  to  Stephen's  initiative  that  we 
must  ascribe  the  introduction  of  the  representative  principle  in 
that  summons.  Once  more  Stephen  shows  himself  a  father  of 
English  liberty.  And  we  should  notice  in  passing  the  wide 
scope  of  the  representation  he  introduces :  it  is  representative 
not  only  of  chapters,  as  at  Bourges,  but  of  monasteries  and 


^^  This  is  Wendover's  account  (Matt.  Paris,  iii.  109).  I  must  admit 
that  Walter  of  Coventry,  in  the  last  paragraph  of  the  Memoranda,  contra- 
dicts this  account  He  speaks  of  the  nuncio  Otto  as  present  at  the  meeting 
at  London,  which  he  dates  not  on  April  26,  but  fifteen  days  after  Easter 
(i.e.  May  4,  not  April  13,  as  Stubbs  says  in  the  side-heading,  an  error 
repeated  in  Const.  Hist.  ii.  39),  and  as  reciting  the  bull  Siip7'a  Mtiros. 
Not  many  days  after  the  council  the  nuncio  receives  papal  letters  and 
leaves  England  (i.  e,  towards  the  end  of  May).  But  this  last  paragraph  is 
not  found  in  MS.  A  ;  and  the  Register  of  St.  Osmund,  ii.  51,  corroborates 
Wendover  {Octone  versus  curiam  Romanam  pro/ecto^  tenuit  do?ni?ius 
Cant,  concilium). 


THE   COUNCIL   OF   1226  47 

other  religious  houses. ^^  The  example  of  Bourges  must  have 
weighed  with  Stephen  ;  ^'^  but  is  it  a  risky  conjecture  that  he 
was  also  influenced  by  his  friends  the  Dominicans,  and  that  he 
partly  borrowed  from  their  organization  this  use  of  representa- 
tives of  religious  houses,  in  which,  one  fancies,  representatives  of 
Dominican  convents  may  have  been  themselves  included  ?  ®^ 

When  the  representative  council  met  at  London  at  the  end 
of  April,  1226,^2  it  returned  a  7ton  possumus  to  the  papal 
demands.  *  The  demands  of  the  Pope  look  to  the  whole 
breadth  of  Christianity  :  we,  situated  as  we  are  on  the  extreme 
confines  of  the  world,  will  see  how  other" realms  behave  towards 
such  demands :  when  we  have  done  so,  and  have  an  example 
from  other  realms,  the  Pope  will  find  us  prompter  in  obedience.' 
The  king,  fearing  for  his  own  interests,  had  on  this  question 
opposed  the  Papacy.^^     But  there  was  still  to  be  settled  the 

'^  The  papal  bull  demanded  prebends  in  cathedral  and  prebendal 
churches,  and  from  monasteries  and  other  regular  houses  and  collegiate 
churches  revenues  according  to  their  means.  Stephen  follows  exactly  the 
wording  of  the  bull  (cf.  Walter  of  Coventry,  ii.  275,  and  Wilkins,  i.  558, 
with  Wilkins,  i.  603).  It  is  not  so  much  of  his  own  initiative,  as  in  exact 
obedience  to  the  wording  of  the  bull,  that  he  goes  beyond  the  French 
precedent  of  1226.  But  at  any  rate  he  sees  that  if  the  bull  is  to  be 
answered  by  means  of  representation,  the  representation  must  be  as  wide 
as  the  demands  of  the  bull ;  and  the  addition  of  monastic  to  capitular 
representatives  makes  his  assembly  far  wider  than  that  at  Bourges. 

^^  The  proceedings  of  Bourges  were  apparently  read  before  the  English 
assembly  when  it  met,  Reg.  St.  Osmund,  ii.  51  ;  cf.  supra,  n.  16. 

"^  Mr.  A.  G.  Little,  who  has  been  kind  enough  to  read  through  this 
study,  reminds  me  (i)  that  according  to  Trivet,  Annates,  s.  a.  1230,  the 
provincial  chapters  of  the  Dominicans  in  England  began  in  1230 ;  (2)  that 
Dominicans,  vowed  to  poverty,  could  hardly  have  attended  an  assembly 
like  that  of  1226,  which  dealt  with  questions  of  property.  I  would  only 
urge,  as  touching  the  first  point,  that  Langton  may  well  have  heard  from 
his  Dominican  friends  about  the  system  on  which  the  chapters,  and 
especially  the  general  chapters,  of  their  Order  were  organized  abroad, 
even  if  that  system  was  not  yet  operative  in  England. 

^"^  We  should  notice  the  date,  1226.  Stubbs,  in  taking  the  summons 
from  Wilkins,  i.  603,  wrongly  dates  it  1225.  Wilkins  heads  his  excerpts 
from  the  Salisbury  Register  with  the  date  1225  ;  but  the  only  document 
to  which  that  date  applies  is  the  first.  All  the  other  documents  must  be 
dated  (in  our  reckoning:  Wilkins'  year  began  on  March  25)  in  1226. 
A  comparison  with  Matt.  Paris  makes  this  absolutely  clear. 

^^  He  had  sent  John  Marshall  and  others  to  the  abortive  assembly 
at  London  in  January,  1226,  to  tell  all  the  prelates  who  held  baronies  of  the 
king  in  chief  not  to  bind  their  lay  fief  to  the  Church  of  Rome,  whence  he 
would  be  deprived  of  his  service  due  (Matt.  Paris,  iii.  103).  The  papal 
bull  had  demanded  de  bonis  episcoporum,  secundum  facuttates  suas  .  .  . 
certi  redditus  (Walter  of  Coventry,  ii.  275). 


48  THE   CHAPTER   OF    SALISBURY 

matter  of  the  competent  subsidy  to  the  king  from  churches, 
of  which  Honorius  had  spoken  in  his  letter  of  February  3, 
1 325.  Nothing  apparently  had  been  done  towards  its  payment, 
and  the  king  could  now  exert  the  more  pressure,  as  he  had 
apparently  defended  the  Church  in  the  other  and  greater 
matter.  Here  the  Register  of  Salisbury  gives  us  interesting 
information.^*  On  Tuesday,  June  16,  1226,  the  dean  and 
chapter  of  Salisbury  received  a  letter  from  their  bishop,  with 
two  enclosures — the  first  the  old  letter  from  Stephen  Langton, 
belonging  to  1225,  which  recites  Honorius's  letter  of  Feb- 
ruary 3,  demanding  an  aid  for  Henry,  and  suggests  the  making 
a  virtue  of  necessity ;  and  the  second  another  and  recent  letter, 
in  which  Stephen  recalls  to  memory  (a  memoria  vestra  non 
credimus  excidisse)  the  proceedings  of  1225,  ^^^  suggests 
a  twelfth  or  at  least  a  fourteenth  from  these  sources  on  which 
the  fifteenth  had  not  been  levied.  On  the  same  day  the  dean 
and  chapter  also  received  a  letter  from  the  king,  dated 
May  27,  in  which  he  recites  how  the  Pope  had  lately 
(dudum)  written  to  the  English  Church  on  his  behalf,  asks  for 
an  efficacious  aid,  and  mentions  that  he  has  conceded  to  the 
Church,  on  the  advice  of  Stephen  and  his  bishops,  tithes  of 
hay  and  mills  from  his  demesnes  for  the  future.  A  chapter 
general  attended  by  twenty-eight  out  of  the  thirty-seven 
canons  was  at  once  summoned  to  discuss  (i)  whether  they 
should  give  the  king  an  aid  ;  (2)  how  it  might  be  brought  about, 
that  one  and  the  same  form  should  be  observed  in  divers 
churches  (in  other  words,  how,  whether  by  use  of  representa- 
tion or  otherwise,  the  rate  of  the  aid  might  be  made  uniform — 
an  important  point) ;  (3)  whether  the  rate  should  be  one- 
twelfth  or  one-fourteenth ;  and  (4)  how  the  creation  of  a  pre- 
cedent might  be  avoided.  Thus  the  chapter  constitutes  itself 
a  small  parliament,   to    discuss    parliamentary  questions   of 

"  The  Historia  et  acta  capiiulorujn  ecclesiae  Saruni  (1217-28:  Wil- 
kins,  i.  551-69)  and  the  excerpts  from  the  Register  dealing  with  1226 
(Wilkins,  i.  602-6)  have  been  of  great  service.  The  Register  of  St. 
Osmund  (Rolls  Series)  gives  Stephen's  two  summons  of  Convocation 
(i.  369-71,  and  also  ii.  46-7  :  they  are  misdated  by  the  editor  in  1224  in 
the  first  volume,  and  vaguely  dated  1225-6  in  the  second).  The  documents 
bearing  on  the  proceedings  of  1226  are  in  vol.  ii,  pp.  55-76. 


INSTRUCTIONS   OF   SALISBURY   PROCTORS    49 

representation  and  precedent.  One  feels  that  the  leaven  of 
Stephen's  summoning  of  representatives  earlier  in  the  year  is 
already  at  work.  And  the  issue  corroborates  one's  feeling. 
The  meeting  was  held  in  the  middle  of  August :  the  issue  was 
a  letter  addressed  by  the  dean  and  chapter  to  their  bishop. 
They  desire  that,  for  the  sake  of  uniformity  (Honorius  had 
spoken  in  his  letter  of  congruae  collectae,  and  Stephen  in  his  of 
forma  eadeni  in  singulis  dioecesibus)^  from  each  church  where 
clerks  live  in  common  a  proctor  should  be  summoned,  that 
from  their  uniform  provision  and  counsel  a  certain  and  uniform 
answer  may  proceed  ;  and  they  further  desire  a  security  from 
the  king  that  anything  now  done  be  counted  as  no  precedent. 
The  Bishop  of  Salisbury  submitted  the  letter  to  Stephen 
Langton,  and  was  able  to  reply,  in  a  letter  received  by  the 
chapter  on  September  8,  that  he  had  induced  the  archbishop 
to  consent  that  each  chapter  should  be  allowed  to  send 
a  proctor  to  London  to  a  meeting  on  October  13,  and  that  he 
commanded  them  to  send  one.^^  The  chapter  at  once  elected 
not  one,  but  two  proctors.  The  two  proctors  carried  to  London 
a  letter  from  the  chapter  to  Stephen,  in  which  it  promised  to  hold 
valid  whatever  the  two  proctors  together  with  the  proctors 
of  other  chapters  thought  proper  to  do.  The  two  proctors 
further  received  from  the  chapter  eleven  articles  of  instruction. 
These  articles  are  of  great  interest.  The  chapter  thinks  (§  i) 
that  it  is  proper  to  help  the  king — if  the  proctors  of  other 
chapters  are  of  the  same  opinion ;  but  it  thinks  a  twentieth 
(such  as  is  given  for  the  Holy  Land)  will  be  adequate  (§  i). 
This  twentieth  should  be  given  on  the  basis  of  the  assessment 
made  before  for  the  contribution  (of  1219)  in  aid  of  the  Holy 
Land  (§  4),  and  on  prebends  and  revenues,  not  on  movables ; 
it  should  be  collected  by  trustworthy  men,  assigned  by  the 
chapter  itself  (§  5).  The  proctors  should  inquire  what  is  to  be 
done  if  any  of  the  canons  singly  contradict  what  has  been 
provided  by  the  majority  of  the  chapter — which  raises  the 
interesting  question  of  the  right  of  a  majority  (§  9).      We 

^'  Whether  Stephen's  action  was  as  much  due  to  the  influence  of  Salis- 
bury as  would  here  appear  we  cannot  say.  Other  chapters  may  have  made 
the  same  request. 

1651  D 


so  CLERICAL  TAXATION 

gather  the  issue  of  the  meeting  to  which  these  proctors  went 
from  a  letter  sent  by  Stephen  Langton  to  the  Bishop  of 
Salisbury  towards  the  end  of  October.  He  had  treated,  so 
he  wrote,  with  the  deans  who  were  present,,  and  with  proctors 
where  deans  were  not  present ;  with  the  archdeacons  present, 
and  the  proctors  of  those  who  were  absent ;  ^^  and  with  monks 
present  and  the  proctors  of  monks  who  were  absent.  They 
had  granted  a  sixteenth  on  all  sources  not  touched  by  the 
fifteenth  of  the  previous  year :  it  was  given  on  the  basis  of  the 
old  assessment  of  the  twentieth  for  the  Holy  Land,  and  it  was 
to  be  collected  by  the  dean  and  chapter  in  cathedral  churches. 
We  see  that  the  proctors  of  Salisbury  have  carried  out  some 
of  the  articles  of  their  instructions.  The  account  in  the 
Register  of  Salisbury  ends  with  a  letter  from  the  king,  in 
which  he  promises  to  make  no  precedent  of  the  grant,  and 
a  letter  from  the  dean  and  chapter  to  their  concanonicus  N., 
asking  for  his  contribution  to  the  sixteenth. ^"^ 

The  developments  which  mark  these  years  are  closely  con- 
nected with  the  history  of  taxation.  The  papal  demand,  as 
far  as  I  know  new  and  unprecedented,  for  prebends  from 
chapters  and  contributions  from  other  ecclesiastical  corpora- 
tions, produces  the  new  and  unprecedented  representation  of 
chapters  both  at  Bourges  in  12^5  and  at  London  in  April  1226. 
The  royal  demand,  not  altogether  new  and  unprecedented  as 
a  demand,  but  nevertheless  new  and  unprecedented  in  its 
particular  character ^and  in  its  success,  produces  representation 
once  more  in  England  in  October  1226.  For  what  is  touched 
by  the  royal  demand  is  the  spiritualities  of  the  clergy ;  and 
though  kings  have  before  sought  to  tax  spiritualities,  the 
attempt  of  1225-6  is  in  reality  of  a  new  kind.  The  Saladin 
tithe  had  touched  spirituality,  but  the  Saladin  tithe  was  in 
sustentationem  terrae  Hierosolymitanae ;  the  ransom  of  Richard 

^^  The  difference  of  phrase  is  significant :  cum  decants,  .  .praesentibus, 
et  cum  procuratoribus  ubi  decani  non  erant  praesentes,  cum  archidiaconis 
Praesentibus  et  cu7n  procuratoribus  absentitan. 

^"^  In  writing  to  their  fellow  canon  the  dean  and  chapter  say  that  they 
have  received  letters  from  Stephen  Langton  saying  that  an  assembly  at 
London  of  deans  or  their  proctors,  archdeacons  or  their  proctors,  and 
monks  or  their  proctors  has  granted  a  sixteenth.  The  phrase  is  loose  :  it 
does  not  reproduce  Stephen's  letter  accurately.     (Wilkins,  i.  606.) 


THE   IMPORTANCE   OF   1226  51 

had  involved  taxation  of  spiritualities,  but  the  ransom  of 
a  crusading  king  is  an  exceptional  case.  The  frontal  attack 
of  the  secular  power  on  spiritualities  in  1207  had  failed;  and 
the  years  1225  and  1226  first  offer  an  instance  of  taxation  of 
clerical  spiritualities  (for  the  sixteenth  of  1226  is  paid  from 
goods  which  had  not  paid  the  fifteenth  of  1225,  and  these 
must  be  spiritualities),  in  which  the  taxation  is  actually  levied 
by  the  lay  power — it  is  true  with  papal  assent — for  lay  objects. 
It  is  therefore  in  reality  a  demand  of  a  new  kind  which  produces 
the  second  representative  assembly  of  the  clergy  in  1226.^^ 

The  events  of  the  year  1226  are  thus  of  great  importance 
in  the  history  of  the  development  of  pfocuratorial  representa- 
tion of  the  clergy.  Twice  representative  assemblies  appear — 
on  April  26,  to  answer  the  papal  demand  for  prebends ;  on 
October  13,  to  answer  the  other  demand  for  an  aid  for  the 
king.*^^  A  long  step  has  been  taken  towards  the  evolution 
of  a  representative  Convocation.  It  has  been  taken  by 
Stephen  Langton,  once  more  as  in  1215  the  friend  of  English 
liberty.  Whether  or  no  we  are  justified  in  seeing  the  result 
of  Dominican  influence  is  an  insoluble  question  ;  but  that 
influence  is  at  any  rate  a  possibility.  At  any  rate  the  canons 
of  Salisbury  have  shown  a  clear  grasp  of  the  idea  of  a  com- 
munity and  of  representation  as  the  means  of  uniform  action 
of  a  community:  they  have  even  raised  the  question  of 
majority  rule.  Is  not  this  year  1226  after  all  more  important 
in  the  genesis  of  representation  than  1213?  John  certainly 
summoned  in  12 13  four  men  (not  knights,  as  is  often  erro- 
neously said)  to  talk  with  him  at  Oxford  on  the  business  of 

^^  The  sixteenth  would  affect  diocesan  clergy  as  well  as  capitular ;  but 
only  the  capitular  clergy  are  represented  in  the  assembly  which  votes  the 
tax.  A  precedent  had  been  set  for  their  representation  earlier  in  the  year  ; 
and  the  precedent  is  exactly  followed,  though  it  should  properly  have  been 
extended  further.  That  extension  comes  in  1254,  as  we  shall  see,  when 
the  Crown  is  demanding  an  aid  ;  and  when,  summoning  knights  from 
shire-courts,  it  summons  part  />assti  clergy  from  diocesan  synods. 

^^  As  far  as  I  can  see,  Stubbs  makes  two  slips  about  the  aid. 
(l)  He  speaks  of  it  as  having  been  granted  twice,  in  1225  and  1226, 
though  he  adds  in  a  footnote  that  the  one  was  the  same  as  the  other 
{^Const.  Hist.  ii.  183).  (2)  He  says  'probably  the  grant  was  made  in 
diocesan  synods'  (ibid.,  n.  3).  It  was  made  in  a  general  assembly  of  the 
Church,  as  he  really  himself  indicates  on  p.  39,  n.  2. 


52     CLERICAL   ELEMENT   IN   REPRESENTATION 

his  kingdom  ;  but  we  know  nothing  of  their  meeting,  if  indeed 
they  ever  met.  Earlierin  the  same  year  he  had  either  summoned 
four  men  and  the  reeve  from  each  vill  on  royal  demesne  to 
St.  Albans,  or  (as  Mr.  Turner  thinks)  he  had  summoned  four 
men  and  the  reeve  from  each  vill  on  episcopal  demesne,  or 
(as  Mr.  Davis  thinks)  he  had  instructed  the  sheriffs,  without 
giving  them  time  to  execute  his  instructions,  to  convene  four 
men  and  the  reeve  from  each  vill  on  royal  demesne  to  shire- 
court  to  give  information  which  the  sheriffs  were  to  bring  to 
St.  Albans.  In  any  case  the  only  question  was  one  of  a  jury 
of  recognition  to  give  evidence  on  the  losses  of  the  bishops 
since  1208.'"  But  the  events  of  11^26  are  surely  far  more 
important  in  the  history  of  representation  than  those  of  12 13. 
And  the  lesson  they  teach  is  that  of  the  influence  of  the  clergy 
on  progress  in  political  ideas.  That  is  just  the  lesson  we  should 
expect  to  find  in  history.  As  Viollet  says,  '  Le  clerge  se  trouva, 
du  premier  jour,  habitue  et  comme  rompu  a  ce  que  nous  appel- 
lerions  aujourd'hui  les  usages  parlementaires.' '^  They  had 
experience  of  assemblies :  they  had  experience  of  representa- 
tive procuratores :  the  new  Orders,  constantly  experimenting 
and  advancing,  as  we  have  seen,  had  widened  and  deepened 
that  experience.  It  seems  paradoxical  to  go  beyond  Bishop 
Stubbs  in  exalting  clerical  influence :  yet  when  he  contents 
himself  with  drawing  only  analogies  between  clerical  and 
secular  assemblies,  and  with  stating  that  *  the  practice  of  repre- 
sentation appears  nearly  at  the  same  time  in  the  Church 
Councils  and  in  the  parliaments,'  "^^  he  really  understates  the 

■'^  See,  for  Mr.  Turner's  view,  Eng,  Hist.  Rev.  xxi.  297-9,  ^^^  for  the 
view  of  Mr.  Davis,  ibid.,  xx.  289-91.  I  confess  I  am  convinced  by  Mr. 
Turner :  the  natural  assembly  to  determine  the  losses  and  compensation 
of  the  bishops  is  an  assembly  recruited  from  men  who  live  on  episcopal 
estates.  I  may  add  that  I  am  tempted  to  bring  into  connexion  with  the 
assembly  of  1213  the  entry  in  the  Waverley  Annals^  p.  260,  under  the 
year  1208  (Stubbs,  Select  Charters ^  p.  274).  John's  commissioners  in 
1208  had  seized  the  goods  of  the  clergy  movable  and  immovable,  and 
had  entrusted  their  care  in  each  vill  to  men  of  the  vicinity,  at  whose 
hands  the  clergy  should  receive  from  their  goods  what  they  absolutely 
needed.  What  more  natural  than  that  inquiry  should  be  made  about  the 
losses  of  the  bishops  from  those  men  of  the  vicinity  in  each  vill  in  which 
episcopal  property  lay  ? 

'^  Histoire  des  itistitutions  de  la  FraJice^  ii.  355. 

■^^  Const.  Hist.  ii.  204. 


JURY  AND   PROCURATORIUM  ^t, 

case  for  the  clergyj^  He  attached  too  much  weight  in  com- 
parison to  the  old  communal  institutions  of  England,  such  as 
the  attendance  of  the  four  men  and  the  reeve  at  hundred  and 
shire-court,  and  to  the  influence  of  the  judicial  procedure  of 
Henry  H.  But  though  the  jury  of  Henry  H  may  contain 
a  form  of  representation,  it  is  representation  merely  to  give 
information  {ad  recognoscendum)^  and  not  to  take  action  {ad 
faciendum).  The  jurors  are  picked,  often  perhaps  more  or  less 
at  random,  as  samples  of  \h^  public  a  fama  whose  voice  the  king 
and  his  justices  would  fain  hear,  much  as  the  miles  argentarius 
picked  44  shillings  from  the  sheriff's  quota  for  weighing,  and 
20  from  those  44  for  assay,  as  samples'of  the  whole.  Repre- 
sentatives who  are  proxies  for  their  constituents,  to  determine 
a  course  of  action  on  their  behalf,  are  a  different  matter  ; 
they  demand  as  their  vital  atmosphere  a  mode  of  thought 
and  a  set  of  ideas  in  which  conceptions  like  procuratorium^ 
the  binding  of  constituents  by  representatives,  and  further  of 
minorities  by  majorities,  are  consciously  realized.  Only  the 
clergy  can  give  that  atmosphere  of  thought  and  ideas.  After 
all,  the  creative  political  thought  of  the  Middle  Ages  is 
clerical :  the  clergy  create  the  thought  of  monarchy  proper  as 
opposed  to  mere  feudal  suzerainty  ;  "^^  they  create  or  recreate 
the  Holy  Roman  Empire  ;  they  create  the  Crusade  as  an  idea 
and  an  institution.  May  we  not  hold,  in  the  light  of  our 
evidence,  that  they  go  far  to  create  representation  ?  ^^ 

"  Cf.  also  p.  210,  n.  3  :  *  Although  the  procuratorial  system  as  used  in 
clerical  assemblies  has  a  certain  bearing  on  the  representative  system  in 
England,  it  is  much  less  important  here  than  in  [other]  countries.  ...  In 
England  the  two  forms  grow  side  by  side,  the  lay  representation  is  not 
formed  on  the  model  of  the  clerical.' 

'*  Cf.  Luchaire,  Histoire  des  institutions  tnonarchiques  sous  les  premiers 
Capetiens^  vol.  i,  ad  i?tit.  (on  the  meaning  of  the  elevation  of  Hugh  Capet 
in  987,  which  he  interprets  as  unfait  ecclesiastique). 

"^  Before  leaving  the  year  1226,  I  may  perhaps  correct  an  error  in 
Makower,  Const.  Hist,  of  the  Church  of  England^  p.  359.  He  dates  the 
use  of  representation  in  the  Scotch  Church  from  1225.  This  would  be 
important  if  it  were  true.  But  the  document  which  he  cites  to  prove  the 
attendance  oi  capitulorum  coUegioruin  et  conventuum procuratores  idonei^ 
in  1225,  is  a  letter  of  Thomas  Innes  to  Wilkins  m  1735  (Wilkins,  i, 
p.  xxx).  Now  Innes  does  say  that  the  Scotch  Church  legislated  to  this 
effect  in  1225  ;  but  if  we  turn  to  the  documents  of  1225  themselves, 
printed  in  Wilkins  (i.  608),  we  find  that  bishops,  abbots,  and  priors  form 
the  council,  though  any  of  them  may  send  a  proctor  on  his  own  behalf  if 

D3 


54    CLERICAL  REPRESENTATION  DOWN  TO  1240 

But  we  must  turn  to  the  further  history  of  the  development. 
The  principle  of  clerical  representation  in  1226  was  incomplete. 
Stephen  Langton  had  only  summoned  proctors  from  clergy 
living  a  common  life,  in  chapters,  monasteries,  and  collegiate 
churches  j  he  had  not  summoned  representatives  of  the  ordinary 
diocesan  clergy.  After  his  death,  though  the  peculiar  condi- 
tions of  the  English  Church  in  the  time  of  Henry  III  involve 
a  frequent  and  almost  annual  activity  of  the  synods,  the  use  of 
representation  does  not  for  some  time  make  any  considerable 
progress.  Langton  had  died  in  1228  ;  his  next  three  succes- 
sors, Richard  le  Grand,  Edmund  Rich,  and  Boniface  of  Savoy, 
however  different  from  one  another  in  character,  were  none  of 
them  made  of  his  strong  stuff.  In  1237,  indeed,  we  find  the 
legate  Otto  using  the  idea  of  procuration  to  some  extent  at 
a  legatine  council  in  London."^®  The  legate,  who  may  have 
remembered  the  history  of  the  proceedings  during  his  previous 
visit  in  1226,  ordered  archbishops,  bishops,  abbots,  and  priors 
to  come  as  well  in  the  name  of  their  convent  or  chapter  as  in 
their  own,  bringing  procuratorial  letters,  so  that  the  enactments 
of  the  council  should  be  held  valid  on  both  sides ;  and  the 
council,  thus  composed, '  passed  canons  which  form  an  epoch 
in  the  history  of  our  ecclesiastical  jurisprudence.' "  Still  a 
further  step  was  taken  during  his  visit  in  1 240,  when,  as  has 
already  been  mentioned  above,''^  the  bishops  replied  to  a 
demand  for  money  by  urging  the  necessity  of  the  presence  of 
the  archdeacons  who  were  acquainted  with  the  means  of  their 
beneficed  clergy,  and  actually  gained  their  point.  Here  the 
archdeacons  appear  as  in  some  sense  representatives  of  the 
ordinary  diocesan  clergy,  and  some  progress  is  made  towards 
the  inclusion  of  diocesan  with  capitular  clergy  in  a  representa- 
tive scheme.  The  pressure  of  taxation  already  drives  the 
clergy  further  along  the  path  of  representation."^^ 

he  is  hindered  by  any  canonical  impediment.  That,  obviously,  is  quite 
another  matter. 

'®  Matt.  Paris,  ii.  415. 

■"  Tout,  Political  History  oj  Englandy  iii.  57. 

'^  Note  46. 

'^  In  1240  also  falls  the  protest  of  the  Berkshire  rectors  against  papal 
demands. 


THE    DEVELOPMENT   IN   1254  55 

It  is  in  1 254  that  events  begin  to  move  fast.  In  the  State 
as  well  as  in  the  Church  development  appears.  Thirty  years 
of  experience  of  the  rule  of  Henry  III  are  bearing  fruit ;  and 
even  if  Boniface  of  Savoy  is  archbishop,  the  voice  of  the  clergy 
will  out,  and  representation  will  come.  On  February  11  of 
1254  the  regents,  Eleanor  and  Earl  Richard,  summon  for  the 
first  time  in  our  history  ^^  knights  of  the  shire  to  a  central 
assembly.  The  sheriff  is  to  expound  to  the  knights  and 
others  of  his  shire  the  king's  needs,  and  to  induce  them 
thereby  to  pay  a  sufficient  aid  ;  he  is  further  to  cause  two 
knights  of  the  shire  to  be  elected  by  the  shire-court  in  lieu 
of  all  and  single  of  the  shire,  who,  instructed  by  the  sheriff's 
exposition  and  by  the  consequent  discussion  in  the  shire- 
court,  will,  along  with  other  knights  from  other  shires,  be 
able  to  answer  precisely  for  their  shire  about  the  aid.  The 
preliminary  local  discussion,  in  shire-court,  and  the  instructions 
given  as  a  result  to  the  shire-knights,  remind  us  of  the  pro- 
ceedings of  the  Salisbury  chapter  in  1226.^^  It  is  important 
to  notice  that  the  assembly,  which  in  the  issue  proved  fruitless* 
probably  also  included  representatives  of  the  clergy  of  each 
diocese.^2  This  clerical  representation  is  doubly  important. 
Here  we  have  mentioned,  for  the  first  time,  representatives  of 
the  diocesan  clergy ;  and  here  we  see  these  representatives 
meeting  not  in  a  separate  clerical  assembly,  but  in  a  national 
parliament  along  with  the  knights  of  the  shire.  In  both  points 
the  event  is  new  and  unprecedented.  In  1255  a  further  step 
was  taken.  At  a  parliament  at  Westminster  after  Michaelmas, 
which  included  clerical  proctors  who  were  there/r^  tmiversitate, 
the  king  asked  the  clergy  to  grant  an  aid  from  their  lay  fiefs, 
intending  afterwards  to  extend  the  same  demand  to  the  laity. 

8®  Not,  as  Stubbs  and  Professor  Tout  say,  *  for  the  first  time  since  the 
reign  of  John  '  {Const.  Hist.  ;i.  69  and  Pol.  Hist.  iii.  yj).  John  had  not 
summoned  knights,  but  simply  homines. 

^^  Stubbs,  Select  Charters,  pp.  376-7  ;  Const.  Hist.  ii.  69. 

^"^  In  a  writ  of  the  same  date,  February  11,  addressed  to  each  bishop, 
the  regents  ask  for  the  convocation  of  diocesan  synods,  in  which  the 
bishops  are  to  induce  the  clergy  to  give  an  aid,  and  from  which  representa- 
tives are  to  come  to  certify  the  council  of  the  aid  granted.  These  repre- 
sentatives are  to  attend  on  the  same  day  as  the  knights.  The  writ  is 
printed  in  Hody,  History  0^ Convocation,  Part  III,  p.  339. 


56     FURTHER    DEVELOPMENT   DOWN   TO    1358 

The  clergy  present,  including  the  proctors,  sent  their gravamma 
to  the  Pope,  Alexander  IV,  whose  predecessor,  Innocent  IV, 
had  already  in  1254  given  the  king  a  tithe  from  the  English 
Church  for  two  years.^^  The  Annals  of  Burton  quote  the 
gravamina  of  the  proctors  of  the  beneficed  clergy  of  the  arch- 
deaconry of  Lincoln,  who  complain  pro  iota  communitate  of 
the  grant  of  a  tithe  of  their  benefices  to  the  king  ipsis  non 
vocatis)  'for  especially,  when  it  is  a  matter  of  binding  any 
man,  is  his  express  consent  necessary.'  Similar  articles  were 
sent  to  the  Pope  from  every  diocese.^*  Here  the  clergy, 
attacked  first  by  the  king,  naturally  take  the  lead  in  empha- 
sizing the  principle  of  representation.  Again  in  1256,  when 
an  ecclesiastical  assembly  was  convoked  for  January  18  to 
answer  the  demands  of  the  nuncio  Rustand,  who  had  come 
in  1255  with  power  to  collect  the  clerical  tithe,  there  were 
summoned  deans  of  cathedrals  with  discreet  canons  as  proctors 
of  their  chapter,  and  archdeacons  with  three  or  four  discreet 
clerks  of  their  archdeaconries  both  on  their  own  behalf  and 
with  procuratorial  mandate  for  their  fellows.^-*  The  business 
hung  fire.  Again  on  April  2  the  nuncio  published  his  instruc- 
tions before  an  assembly  of  archdeacons,  and  it  was  settled  that 
deans,  prelates,  regulars  (?  abbots)  and  archdeacons  should 
treat  with  their  chapters  and  clerks,  so  that  they  might  return 
in  the  month  after  Easter  to  answer  fully  through  instructed 
proctors.^^^  Rustand,  however,  made  no  progress.  In  1257 
we  again  hear  of  a  form  of  representation :  Boniface  of 
Canterbury  summoned  to  a  convocation  in  London,  on 
August  22,  deans  of  chapters  and  archdeacons  with  procura- 
torial letters  in  the  names  of  their  chapters  and  clergy.^"'^ 
Once  more  in  1258,  when  Rustand  returned  to  the  charge 
with   a   second   nuncio,   Boniface   summoned    a   meeting  to 

^^  Annates  de  Burton^  P«  325  ;  cf.  infra^  n.  90. 

®*  Ibid.,  pp.  360,  363.  It  should  be  noticed  that  representative  clergy 
certainly  attend  the  parliament  of  1255  along  with  the  laity — for  the  last 
time  until  1282. 

^^  Matt.  Paris,  vi.  315  ;  Stubbs,  Const.  Hist.  ii.  206:  Makower,  Const. 
Hist,  of  the  Church  of  England,  p.  360.  As  Makower  remarks,  this 
is  the  first  instance  of  representatives  of  inferior  beneficed  clergy  in 
a  clerical  assembly.  The  assemblies  of  1254  and  1255,  in  which  such 
representatives  had  appeared,  were  not  clerical. 

^^  Ann.  de  Burton,  p.  389.  ^'  Ibid.,  pp.  401-2. 


IMPORTANCE   OF  THE   YEARS    1254-1258     57 

Merton  for  June  6,  at  which  deans,  abbots,  priors,  and 
archdeacons  were  to  attend  with  procuratorial  letters  from 
their  subject  clergy,  propter  ecclesiae  Anglicanae  eventus  et 
causas.^^  A  few  days  later,  June  11,  1258,  the  events  of 
these  four  troubled  years,  1254  to  1258,  culminated  in  the 
Mad  Parliament  at  Oxford.  The  whole  realm  was  to  under- 
take that  reformation  for  which  the  clergy  had  been  travailing  ; 
and  the  Mad  Parliament  was  a  full  assembly  of  baronage  and 
higher  clergy  with  that  object. 

The  years  1254  to  1258  are  obviously  a  time  of  crisis,  when 
development  is  rapid.  In  some  respects  they  repeat  the 
events  of  1225  and  1226.  There  is  a  demand  for  taxation 
from  the  clergy  for  the  use  of  the  king ;  the  demand  is  backed 
by  the  Pope  ;  a  papal  nuncio  is  present.  The  combination  of 
royal  and  papal  pressure  produces,  in  the  one  case  as  in  the 
other,  a  demand  for  representation.  In  the  one  case,  however, 
we  only  find  representation  of  chapters  ;  by  1258  we  find 
representation  of  the  beneficed  clergy  of  the  archdeaconries, 
which  is  used  in  1254  and  1255  for  joint  assemblies  of  clergy 
and  laity;  in  1256  for  a  purely  clerical  assembly;  and  is 
again  employed,  in  a  lesser  degree  (the  archdeacons  having 
procuratorial  letters  from  the  clergy),  in  1257  and  1258.  The 
reason  for  the  advance  is  plain.  The  demands  of  1225  had 
primarily  touched  the  capitular  clergy;  the  later  demands 
affected  the  ordinary  beneficed  clergy  as  well.  Already  in  1240 
the  papal  demand  for  a  tax  on  all  clerical  goods  ^^  to  support 
the  war  against  Frederic  II,  which  began  in  1239,  had  produced 
the  protest  of  the  Berkshire  rectors  and  the  refusal  of  the 
bishops  to  act  unless  the  archdeacons  were  consulted.  The 
war  continued,  and  with  it  the  papal  exactions.^*^     By  1254 

^^  Ann.  de  Burton^  pp.  411-12  ;  Stubbs,  Select  Charters^  p.  454. 

^^  The  first  demand  had  already  been  made  in  1229  by  Gregory  IX 
during  the  first  war  against  ^Frederic  II.  Gregory  had  demanded  a  tenth 
from  all  movables,  lay  as  well  as  clerical.  The  laity  had  refused  ;  the 
higher  clergy  had  consented,  and  the  clergy  had  paid  (except  in  Cheshire, 
where  the  earl  refused  to  allow  the  clergy  to  do  so).  Matt.  Paris,  iii. 
186-9. 

^^  These  exactions  are  based  on  the  theory  that  the  war  against  the 
Emperor  is  a  Crusade  (see  H.  Pissard,  La  Guerre  Samte  en  Pays 
ChrHien^  Paris,  1912,  pp.  121  sqq.).  In  1215  it  had  been  enacted  at  the 
Fourth  Lateran  Council  (Labbe  and  Cossart,  Cone,  xi,  i.  220)  that  all 


58  THE   INFLUENCE    OF   TAXATION 

Henry  had  added  to  the  burden  in  various  ways.  In  1250  he 
had  taken  the  Cross,  and  been  granted  clerical  tithes  by  the 
Pope  on  that  ground  for  some  years.  In  1 2,^^  he  had  started 
an  expensive  campaign  in  Gascony,  which  led  to  the  summon- 
ing of  representatives  in  1354.  It  was  a  more  serious  matter 
that  in  1254  he  had  dragged  England  into  the  papal  war 
against  the  Hohenstaufen,  by  accepting  Sicily  for  his  son 
Edmund,  and  had  thus  at  once  imposed  new  burdens  of  his 
own  on  England,  and  given  the  Papacy  a  fresh  excuse  for 
pressing  its  exactions.  It  is  the  cumulative  effect  of  these 
events  which  explains  the  development  between  1254  and 
1258  ;  and  it  is  the  fact  that  the  taxes  on  the  clergy,  whether 
demanded  by  the  Pope  for  himself  or  for  the  king,  fell  as 
heavily  on  the  ordinary  clergy  of  the  dioceses  as  on  other 
.clergy,  which  explains  their  inclusion  in  the  representative 
bodies  convened  to  meet  such  demands.  Whether  any  other 
influence  than  the  pressure  of  taxation  made  for  representation 
it  is  difficult  to  say.  The  chief  feature  of  the  history  of  the 
Dominican  Order  between  1254  and  1258  is  its  struggle  with 
the  University  of  Paris.^^  Simon  de  Montfort,  friend  of  the 
Order,  stiffened  resistance  in  these  years ;  it  was  in  the  convent 
of  the  Order  at  Oxford  that  the  Mad  Parliament  met  in 
1258.^2    But  if  we  are  willing  to  regard  clerical  representation 

clerks,  ^am  subditi  quain  praelati,  should  pay  one-twentieth  of  ecclesias- 
tical revenues  for  three  years,  for  the  aid  of  the  Holy  Land,  under  pain  of 
excommunication.  (It  is  the  assessment  for  this  twentieth  of  which  the 
canons  of  SaHsbury  speak  in  1226.)  The  twentieth  became  a  tenth 
in  1229,  when  Gregory  IX  sought  to  extend  it  to  the  laity;  in  1240 
it  became  even  a  fifth.  Innocent  IV  in  1245  at  the  Council  of  Lyons 
(Labbe  and  Cossart,  Cone.  xi.  i.  655)  repeated  the  enactments  of  the 
Council  of  1215  ;  and  in  1246  he  demanded  a  half,  a  twentieth,  and  a 
third  from  different  classes  of  the  clergy  (Stubbs,  Const.  Hist.  ii.  70).  In 
1250  Henry  III  took  the  Cross;  and  Innocent  IV,  to  attach  him  to  the 
papal  side,  authorized  him  in  125 1  to  exact  for  his  Crusade  a  tenth  of  the 
revenues  of  the  clergy  for  three  years  on  a  new  assessment  (Stubbs, 
Const.  Hist.  ii.  67),  and  added  a  tithe  for  two  more  years  in  1254,  com- 
muting at  the  same  time  the  Crusade  for  the  Sicilian  enterprise.  For  the 
further  history  of  papal  exactions  in  England  see  Stubbs,  Const.  Hist.  iii. 
346-9.  For  a  list  of  the  exactions  in  the  reign  of  Henry  III  see  Amt.  de 
Burton,  pp.  364-7. 

^^  This  struggle,  which  lasted  from  1252  to  1259,  is  noticed  by  Matthew 
Paris,  iv.  416,  506,  528,  598,  645,  744,  and  by  the  Ann.  de  Burton^ 
pp.  430-5  ;  cf.  Rashdall,  op.  cit.,  i.  373  sqq. 

^  Matt.  Paris,  iv.  697.     Little  {Grey  Friars,  p.  72,  note),  in  mentioning 


THE   PERIOD    1258-1273  59 

as  at  all  a  Dominican  seed,  sown  by  Stephen  Langton,  all  we 
can  say  is  that  it  was  growing  in  this  period. 

In  the  troubled  period  of  the  Barons'  War,  with  papal  and 
royal  exactions  removed,  clerical  representation  is  not  so 
prominent.  Not  even  to  Simon's  great  parliament  of  1265, 
largely  clerical  as  that  assembly  was,  were  clerical  proctors 
summoned.  Later  in  1265,  however,  two  proctors  from  each 
chapter  were  summoned,  with  full  power  of  treating,  to 
a  parliament  at  Winchester  on  the  first  of  June ;  ^^  but  as 
Prince  Edward  had  escaped  and  begun  to  raise  troops  in 
May  it  can  hardly  have  met.  Not  until  1273  ^^  ^^  again 
get  a  clear  instance  of  clerical  representation.^*  Why  had 
de  Montfort  not  incorporated  clerical  proctors  in  his  parliament 
of  1265?  Was  it  that  they  only  came  'when  the  business 
specially  touched  the  clergy ',  and  there  was  no  such  business  ? 
Or  was  it  that,  with  so  great  a  majority  of  the  higher  clergy 
present  (some  120,  to  23  earls  and  barons)  he  was  afraid  to 
overweight  the  assembly  with  his  clerical  supporters  ?  What- 
ever the  reason,  clerical  representation  ceases  for  the  fifteen 
years  1 258-1 273,  save  for  the  dubious  instance  of  1265. 

The  parliament  of  1265,  in  which  clerical  proctors  did  not 
appear,  but  representatives  of  the  towns  sat  by  the  side  of  the 
knights  for  the  first  time  in  English  history,^^  may  here  claim 
some  attention.  Simon's  action  in  summoning  representatives 
of  towns  has  been  explained  by  different  writers  as  modelled 

this  fact,  suggests  that  the  Dominicans  seem  to  have  been  royalist.  The 
only  evidence  he  adduces  is  that  Friar  John  Darlington,  one  of  the  king's 
twelve  on  the  committee  of  twenty-four,  was  a  Dominican.  This  evidence 
is  hardly  sufficient  for  the  suggestion  ;  and  the  suggestion  neglects  the 
connexion  of  the  Dominicans  with  de  Montfort.  On  the  other  hand, 
Kilwardby  in  the  next  reign  certainly  seems  more  of  a  royalist  than 
Peckham.     See  Addendum  I,  p.  'JT, 

^*  Stubbs,  Select  Charters^  p.  418. 

'*  I  am  not  clear  about  the  meeting  of  1269  (Wilkins,  ii.  20)  {Procura- 
tores  Coventr.  Line,  Norwyc.  &c.)  which  Stubbs  translates  as  '  proctors 
of  the  several  dioceses'  {Const,  Hist,  ii,  2o6j.  The  proctors  may  only 
have  been  proctors  of  absent  bishops. 

°^  The  supposed  instance  of  121 3  fades  away  on  examination.  If  four 
men  and  a  reeve  had  come  from  each  vill  on  royal  demesne,  then  (since  villa 
includes  town  as  well  as  township,  and  since  most  towns  were  on  royal 
demesne)  representatives  of  towns  would  have  attended.  But  we  have 
already  seen  reason  to  explain  the  passage  in  Matthew  Paris  other- 
wise. 


6o  DE   MONTFORT  AND   THE  CLERGY 

on  the  institutions  of  Aragon,  of  Sicily,  and  of  Gascony.^^  It 
would  seem  absurd  to  add  a  fresh  explanation,  or  to  suggest 
the  influence  of  the  Church,  and  particularly  of  the  friars, 
as  a  possible  source.  We  may,  however,  raise  one  or  two 
considerations.  In  the  first  place,  de  Montfort  was  closely 
X  connected  with  the  friars.  St.  Dominic  had  been  closely  asso- 
ciated with  his  father;  Simon  himself  was  perhaps  the  pupil 
of  the  Dominicans ;  his  wife  found  a  refuge,  and  a  resting- 
place,  in  the  house  of  the  canonesses  of  St.  Dominic  at 
Montargis.  His  library  contained  at  least  one  Dominican 
treatise.  He  was  also  connected  with  the  Franciscans  through 
his  friendship  with  Adam  de  Marsh  and  with  the  friend  of  the 
Franciscans,  Robert  Grosseteste.^^  In  the  second  place,  the 
Song  of  Lewes,^^  generally  attributed  to  a  friar  of  the 
Franciscan  Order,  throws  light  on  Simon's  ideas  on  '  the 
government  of  soul  and  body ',  on  which  he  had  so  often 
talked  with  Adam  de  Marsh  and  Grosseteste ;  and  it  deserves 
consideration  alongside  of  the  Forma  Regiminis  of  1264,  to 
which  Monsieur  Bemont  bids  us  look  for  Simon's  political 
theory.  It  illustrates  the  sentiments  not  only  of  the  Fran- 
ciscans but  of  the  Universities,  and  not  only  of  the  Universities 
but  of  Simon  himself,  who  had  talked  with  those  teachers 
of  the  Universities,  Marsh  and  Grosseteste,  from  whom  the 
doctrine  of  the  Song  was  drawn.^^  That  the  Song  definitely 
suggests  representation  we  can  hardly  say ;  the  words 

Igitur  communitas  regni  consulatur 
Et  quid  universitas  sentiat  sciatur 

may  refer  only  to  the  '  community  of  the  prelates  and  barons ' 
mentioned  in  the  Forma  Regiminis  of  1264.  Yet  we  may  say 
with  Stubbs  that  '  the  friars  represented  the  doctrines  of  civil 
independence  in  the  Universities  and  country  at  large  V^^ 
and  we  may  urge  that  the  author  teaches  the  lesson  that  the 

^^  Bemont,  Simon  de  Montfort^  p.  230. 

*^  Ibid.,  pp.  58,  86.     Trivet,  Annales^  s.  a.  1276. 

'^  Monsieur  Bemont  refers  to  this  in  a  note  on  p.  219,  but  does  not 
consider  its  teaching,  or  the  bearing  of  that  teaching  on  the  ideas  of 
de  Montfort. 

'^  Mr.  Kingsford  suggests  that  it  is  not  impossible  that  the  author  may 
have  been  attached  to  the  earl's  household  (cf.  his  edition,  p.  xviii). 

^"^  Stubbs,  Const,  Hist.  ii.  315. 


THE  IDEALS  OF  DE  MONTFORT      61 

community  must  be  governed  by  a  power  which  is  repre- 
sentative and  as  such  limited,  and  which,  because  it  is  thus 
representative  and  thus  limited,  must  not  act  without  the 
advice  of  the  community.  Perhaps  in  Simon's  eyes  that 
limit  was  to  be  imposed,  and  that  advice  given,  only  by  the 
aristocracy,  as  the  Forma  Regiminis  suggests ;  perhaps  the 
wider  assembly  of  February  1265  was  only  intended  as  an 
exceptional  and  as  it  were  '  constituent '  assembly  to  ratify  the 
constitution  of  1264.^'^^  Yet  it  is  a  matter  of  opinion,  and 
some  of  us  may  feel  that  'community*  had  for  Simon 
a  broader  significance,  and  that  the  prmciple  of  representation, 
not  once,  but  twice  admitted  by  Simon  in  the  course  of  1265, 
was  part  of  his  permanent  creed.  We  may  feel  that  '  com- 
munity' meant  not  merely  the  one  particular  community  of 
prelates  and  barons,  but  a  communa  totiiis  terrae^  in  which 
there  were  federated  into  one  whole  the  upper  community  of 
prelates  and  barons,  and  the  lower  communities  of  shire  and 
borough  ;  we  may  feel  that  such  a  community,  so  broad  and 
so  deep,  can  only  act  through  representation,  which  must 
always,  and  not  once  only,  be  necessary  for  its  action.  And 
we  may  suspect  that  Simon  owed  such  a  creed  in  some 
measure  to  the  teaching  of  the  friars — the  Franciscans,  it  is 
true,  rather  than  the  Dominicans.^^^ 

It  was  left  to  the  two  friar-archbishops,  Kilwardby  the 
Dominican  and  Peckham  the  Franciscan,  to  make  representa- 
tion a  permanent  and  regular  part  of  the  organization  of  the 
English  Church.  Robert  Kilwardby,  a  Dominican  who  had 
been  provincial  prior  of  his  Order  in  England,  held  the  chair  of 
Canterbury  from  1272  to  1278.  He  had  been  appointed  by 
Gregory  X,  in  spite  of  Edward's  endeavours  on  behalf  of 
Burnell,  after  the  three  years'  vacancy  which  followed  the 
death  of  Boniface.     Kilwardby  was  not  only  an  administrator, 

^°^  As  M.  B6iiont  notes,  op.  at.,  p.  231,  the  writs  of  June  1265  <^o  ^ot 
summon  representatives  of  towns.  But  he  is  not  quite  right  in  saying 
that  this  parliament  was  to  be  composed  '  only  of  the  higher  baronage  and 
the  prelates '  ;  as  we  have  seen,  proctors  of  chapters  are  summoned,  and 
the  principle  of  representation  is  still  admitted. 

^°^  It  may  be  suggested  that,  if  the  February  parliament  of  1265  is 
treated  as  '  constituent ',  it  is  parallel  to  the  capittdti7n  getieralisshnum  in 
which  the  Dominicans  made  constitutional  changes.     See  Addendum  II. 


62    THE  ECCLESIASTICAL  POLICY  OF  EDWARD  I 

but  a  theologian,  and  also,  as  we  have  seen,  a  considerable 
author.^^2  The  accession  of  Kilwardby,  followed  as  he  was 
by  men  of  the  same  stamp  in  Peckham  and  Winchelsea, 
inaugurated  a  new  epoch  in  the  history  of  the  English  Church. 
The  scene  and  the  actors  were  both  new,  and  a  new  drama 
was  played.  With  the  accession  of  Rudolf  of  Habsburg  in 
1273  t^^  conflict  of  Papacy  and  Empire  was  ended,  and  there 
came  a  relaxation  of  the  papal  pressure  which  that  had 
entailed.  The  relations  of  the  English  Church  to  Rome 
became  less  those  of  hostility  and  more  those  of  alliance. 
The  character  and  policy  of  the  new  monarch,  Edward  I, 
tended  in  the  same  direction.  Directing  his  energies  to  the 
creation  of  a  united  national  state,  he  sought  to  bring  the 
clergy  within  its  action,  ut  esset  clertis  sicut  et  populus}^^  and 
to  compel  the  clergy  to  pay  their  quota  to  the  expenses  of  the 
state  no  longer  as  a  matter  of  clerical  obedience  to  their  papal 
sovereign,  but  as  a  matter  of  civic  duty  to  the  secular  govern- 
ment. The  English  Church,  which  had  fought  Henry  HI 
because  he  acted  as  the  colleague  or  henchman  of  the  Papacy 
in  its  demands,  had  now  to  resist  Edward  because  he  wished 
to  act  as  independent  lay  sovereign  of  the  realm. 

This  was  hardly  the  case  in  the  beginning  of  the  reign. 
Edward  was  still  the  ally  of  the  Papacy,  fresh  from  a  Crusade, 
and  the  first  years  of  his  reign  are  in  ecclesiastical  matters 
not  unlike  the  years  of  his  father's  rule.  The  first  act  of  the 
archbishop  elect,  in  the  beginning  of  the  reign  of  Edward  I, 
was  to  preside  over  an  episcopal  council,  which,  at  the  request 
of  two  papal  nuncios  and  a  bull  from  Gregory  X  which  they 
had  brought,  voted  a  tenth  for  two  years  to  Edward  and 
Edmund  his  brother  for  the  expenses  of  their  Crusade 
(January  19, 1273).^^^  I"  ^^^  vv^yX  year,  at  the  Second  Council 
of  Lyons,  Gregory  X  exacted  a  tenth  from  clerical  revenues 

*^  Sttpra,  pp.  29-30.  Kilwardby  must  have  been  a  man  of  considerable 
character  and  originality.  His  theological  attitude  is  independent ;  and 
the  thorough  method  he  brought  to  his  office  of  archbishop,  and  the  full 
use  he  made  of  representative  institutions,  seem  to  indicate  an  organiser 
and  a  statesman. 

104  Ann.  Osney^  p.  286,  quoted  in  Stubbs,  Select  Charte?'s,  p.  432. 

105  wilkins,  Cone.  ii.  24-5,  from  the  Register  of  Worcester. 


THE   ACTIVITY   OF   KILWARDBY  63 

for  the  Crusade  for  the  next  six  years,^*'^  '  which  was  no  small 
grievance  and  disturbance  of  all  Christianity.'  But  the  new 
reign  soon  settled  down  to  a  policy  of  healing.  Already  in 
September  of  1273  Robert  Kilwardby  has  summoned  a  repre- 
sentative council,  not  to  grant  or  resist  taxation,  but  for 
a  purpose  for  which  representation  has  not  hitherto  been 
used — the  reform  of  the  Church  and  the  remedy  of  her 
troubles.  Since  the  cares  of  his  office  have  been  imposed 
upon  him,  he  has  turned  his  thoughts  to  the  state  of  churches 
and  churchmen,  and  has  found  much  that  needs  correction 
and  reform  with  the  help  of  his  brothers  and  co-bishops.  And 
that  such  business  may  be  supported  by  sounder  counsel,  each 
bishop  is  to  bring  three  or  four  of  the  greater,  discreeter,  and 
more  prudent  persons  of  his  church  and  diocese,^^^  so  that  by 
common  counsel  the  business  may  have  a  happy  issue.  The 
scope  and  function  of  representation  has  here  widened.  It  is 
used  not  for  taxation  merely,  but  for  general  deliberation  on 
the  business  of  the  Church.  Just  as  there  is  an  advance  from 
the  knights  of  1254,  who  answer  precisely  about  an  aid,  to 
knights  and  burgesses  of  1275,  who  treat  about  the  business  of 
the  realm, ^^^  so  there  is  an  advance  from  the  clerical  assemblies 
of  1254-8  to  this  assembly  of  1273.  The  same  advance 
appears  in  1277.  The  issue  of  some  of  the  reforms  attempted 
of  late  is  uncertain,  others  are  quite  unachieved ;  new  diffi- 
culties have  arisen  to  the  grave  peril  of  the  English  Church. 
Once  more  the  Dominican  archbishop  turns  to  a  representative 
assembly.  Bishops  are  to  come  with  some  greater  persons 
from  their  chapters,  and  with  archdeacons  and  proctors  of  all 
the  clergy  of  each  diocese,  to  treat  of  the  business  aforesaid 
and  by  common  consent  bring  it  to  a  laudable  end.^^^  Here 
ended  the  activity  of  Kilwardby.  In  1278  he  was  made 
cardinal  bishop  of  Porto^  and  left  England  (taking  the  registers 
of  Canterbury  as  he  went).     It  was  hardly  a  promotion,  and 

^°*  Labbe  and  Cossart,  xi.  i.  995  ;  Ann.  Osney,  p.  260. 

*°^  This  seems  to  embrace  representatives  both  of  the  cathedral  church 
and  of  the  diocesan  clergy.  For  the  summons  see  Wilkins,  Cone.  ii.  26, 
and  Stubbs,  Select  Charters,  p.  455. 

^^^  Eng.  Hist.  Rev.,  1910,  p.  236. 

109  Wilkins,  Cotic,  ii.  30 ;  Stubbs,  Select  Charters^  p.  456. 


64  THE   BEGINNINGS   OF   PECKHAM 

Its  real  motive,  Professor  Tout  thinks,  was  'to  remove  Kilwardby 
from  England  and  to  send  a  more  active  man  in  his  place.'  ^^^ 
Peckham,  his  successor,  certainly  proved  himself,  as  soon  as 
he  came,  more  active ;  but  he  failed  to  check  the  development 
of  Edward's  ecclesiastical  policy. 

Whatever  may  have  been  the  papal  view  of  Kilwardby's 
/  conduct  in  his  office,  he  had  really  brought  the  Dominican 
system  of  government  by  a  representative  chapter  into  the 
English  Church.  He  had  made  a  representative  provincial 
synod  the  regular  organ  for  the  conduct  of  general  ecclesiastical 
business,  as  the  provincial  chapter  was  in  his  own  Order,  and 
no  longer  an  extraordinary  method  for  meeting  financial 
pressure.  In  both  assemblies  too  (iii73  and  iiJ77)  he  had 
included  diocesan  as  well  as  capitular  representatives,  and  he 
was  the  first,  if  we  may  except  the  assemblies  from  11^56  to 
1258,  to  include  representatives  of  the  diocesan  clergy  in 
a  purely  ecclesiastical  meeting  of  the  Church.  His  successor, 
John  Peckham,  also  a  friar,  but  of  the  Franciscan  Order,  who 
had  already  been  a  doctor  at  Oxford,  continued  the  work 
he  had  begun.  At  first  indeed  Peckham  took  another  line. 
In  hot  haste  he  convoked  a  provincial  synod  of  bishops  only 
at  Reading  in  the  middle  of  1279,  ^"^  passed  canons  against 
pluralities  (*  which  frightened  every  benefice  hunter  among  the 
clerks  of  the  royal  household '),  and  denounced  penalties 
against  all  violators  of  Magna  Carta  ('  in  a  fashion  that  sug- 
gested that  the  king  was  an  habitual  offender ').^^^     Later  in 

"'^  Political  Hist.  iii.  150;  cf.  also  Tout's  article  in  Diet.  Nat.  Biog, 
Edward's  wife,  Eleanor  of  Castile,  was  a  great  friend  of  the  Dominicans. 
Kilwardby,  though  appointed  against  Edward's  wishes,  may  have  become 
a  friend  of  the  Court.     But  see  Addendum  III. 

"^  Tout,  ibid.,  p.  151.  Was  the  Statute  of  Mortmain,  passed  in 
November,  already  mooted?  If  so,  Peckham  may  have  been  trying 
to  raise  a  storm  which  would  prevent  its  passing.  His  first  article  of 
excommunication  is  against  those  who  presume  to  deprive  the  Church 
of  its  rights  or  infringe  its  liberties.  The  excommunication  of  all  violators 
of  Magna  Carta  in  the  eleventh,  and  the  provision  for  posting  a  copy 
of '  the  charter  of  the  king  for  the  liberty  of  the  Church  and  realm  granted 
by  the  king '  in  cathedral  and  collegiate  churches,  may  have  the  same 
object.  Stubbs  speaks  of  Edward  as  having  *  kept  back  the  statute ' 
{Const.  Hist.  ii.  117).  It  would  perhaps  be  too  much  to  suggest  that  the 
prospect  of  such  legislation  as  the  Statute  of  Mortmain  explains  the  going 
of  Kilwardby  and  the  coming  of  Peckham. 


EDWARD'S  THEORY  OF  CHURCH  AND  STATE    6^ 

the  year,  when  Mortmain  had  been  passed,  and  he  had  been 
forced  to  revoke  the  obnoxious  articles,  and  to  order  the 
copies  of  the  Charter  to  be  taken  down  from  the  churches,^^^ 
he  acted  more  moderately.  On  November  15,  1279,  Edward  I 
asked  for  a  grant  from  the  clergy.  The  language  of  his  letter 
throws  light  on  his  policy.  He  has  taken  the  labours  of  others 
on  himself  to  secure  the  peace  of  the  State  :  he  has  spent  much 
on  the  Welsh  expedition,  on  making  castles  and  towns  in 
Wales,  and  on  gaining  an  alliance  with  France.  It  is  just  and 
reasonable  that  the  clergy,  who  no  less  than  all  the  rest  of  the 
people  live  under  his  rule,  and  enjoy-  his  protection  in  their 
things  temporal,  and  specially  in  their  things  spiritual,  should 
come  to  his  aid.^^^  The  demand  is  of  a  different  order  from 
those  which  the  clergy  had  had  to  face  in  the  reign  of  Henry  HI : 
there  is  no  speech  of  a  Crusade,  but  of  secular  objects;  there 
is  no  papal  confirmation,  but  the  king's  mere  demand  ;  the 
clergy  is  not  asked  as  a  separate  Order,  but  as  part  of  the 
realm,  enjoying  the  benefits  of  its  government.^^*  Peckham 
bowed  to  the  demand.  As  early  as  November  6  he  summoned 
a  convocation  for  January  20,  1280.  The  bishops  were  to 
convoke  and  persuade  the  clergy  of  their  dioceses,  and  bring 
news  of  the  result  either  in  person,  or  through  their  proctors, 
or  certainly  through  proctors  proper  for  the  business,^^^  to  the 
assen>bly  in  January.  Similarly,  the  Archbishop  of  York 
ordered  each  archdeacon  in  his  province  to  consult  his  clergy, 
and  bring  news  of  the  result  to  Pomfret  with  two  men  of 
[  worthy  eminence  and  one  dean  of  the  archdeaconry.^^^  In 
[  the  issue  Canterbury  granted  one-fifteenth  for  three  years,  and 
York  an  equivalent  amount  of  one-tenth  for  two.^^"^ 

But  Peckham,  though  he  had  raised  no  opposition  in  this 
matter,  and   though    he  went   out   of   his   way  to  expedite 

"^  Wilkins,  C^^^c.  ii.  40.  "^  Ibid.,  p.  41. 

^^*  Edward's  letter  seemed  worth  quoting  at  some  length,  because  the 
theory  it  enunciates  is  responsible  for  his  attempt,  which  eventually 
failed,  to  incorporate  the  Church  in  a  united  national  parliament.  It 
is  in  speaking  of  Edward's  demand  in  1279  that  the  Osney  annalist  uses 
the  phrase  quoted  above,  «/  esse/  clerus  sicut  et populus. 

"°  This  seems  to  leave  room  for  the  attendance  of  proctors  of  the 
clergy  at  the  convocation,  Wilkins,  Cone.  ii.  37. 

^^«  Wilkins,  ibid.,  pp.  41-2.  1"  Ibid.,  p.  42. 

1551  E 


66        THE   DOUBLE    PARLIAMENT   OF    128a 

a  similar  demand  of  the  king  in  1281,^^^  had  by  no  means 
entirely  submitted.  At  the  end  of  July,  1281,  he  summoned 
bishops,  abbots,  priors,  deans,  archdeacons,  and  proctors  of 
chapters  (this  is  the  first  certain  use  of  representation  made  by 
him)  to  a  council  at  Lambeth,  in  which  he  sought  to  vindicate 
for  the  spiritual  courts  cases  of  patronage  and  pleas  which 
touched  the  chattels  of  the  spiritualty. ^^^  Before  the  assembly 
met,  Edward  sent  the  archbishop  two  letters,  prohibiting  any 
action  to  the  prejudice  of  the  Crown.^'^'^  The  archbishop  gave 
way:  the  Constitutions  published  at  Lambeth  have  nothing 
to  say  of  patronage  or  pleas  touching  personalty.  Though 
the  question  of  clerical  jurisdiction  was  raised  again  by  Peckham 
in  1285,  when  the  clergy  of  Canterbury  petitioned  for  the  regu- 
lation of  royal  prohibitions,  the  only  result  which  he  achieved 
by  his  persistence  was  a  further  limitation  of  the  province  of 
spiritual  courts. ^^^ 

Between  1281  and  1285  two  important  developments  ap- 
peared in  the  history  of  Convocation,  the  one  in  1282,  the 
other  in  1283.  They  are  the  last  two  that  we  have  to  trace. 
In  1 28 1  the  influence  of  clerical  organization  on  secular  is  seen 
in  a  curious  way.  Corresponding  to  the  two  provinces  and 
two  provincial  synods  of  Canterbury  and  York,  the  North 
and  the  South,  Edward  I  in  1282  summoned  two  assemblies, 
the  one  for  the  North  at  York,  the  other  for  the  South  at 
Northampton.  Both  assemblies  met  in  two  bodies,  the  one 
lay,  the  other  clerical.  The  lay  body  in  either  assembly 
consisted  of  magnates  and  elected  knights  and  burgesses  ;  the 
clerical  body  of  bishops,  abbots,  priors,  and  other  heads  of 
religious   houses,  with   proctors  on  behalf  of  the  dean  and 

"*  Wilkins,  Cone.  ii.  49-50. 

"'  Ann.  Osney,  p.  285  (quoted  in  Select  Charters,  p.  432). 

^'^^  Wilkins,  ii.  50.  This  suggests  the  constitutio  of  William  I,  quoted  by 
Eadmer  {Select  Charters,  p.  82). 

^'^^  Professor  Tout  goes  too  far  in  saying  that  in  128 1  *  once  more 
Edward  annulled  the  proceedings  of  a  council '  {Political  Hist.  iii.  152). 
Strictly  speaking,  even  in  1279  the  proceedings  were  revoked  by  the 
archbishop  (Wilkins,  ii.  40)  and  not  annulled  by  the  king  ;  and  on  this 
occasion,  as  the  proceedings  had  never  taken  place,  they  could  not  be 
annulled.  The  general  reference  of  the  writ  circumspecte  agatis  to  1285 
is  perhaps  wrong ;  cf.  Pollock  and  Maitland,  H.  E.  Z.,  ii.  200.  The  date 
of  the  writ  is  dubious:  Prynne  referred  it  to  c.  131 6. 


THE   MODEL   CONVOCATION   OF   1283        67 

chapter  of  each  diocese.^^^  Here  we  have  the  first  instance 
of  a  royal  summons  to  clerical  representatives  since  1265,  but 
the  summons,  as  in  1265,  is  confined  to  proctors  of  chapters. 
This  limitation  explains  the  issue  of  the  assembly,  as  far  as 
the  clergy  were  concerned.  Asked  for  one-tenth  of  their 
revenues  for  three  years,  the  clergy  at  Northampton  replied 
that  they  could  not  act  in  the  absence  of  the  larger  portion  of 
their  numbers ;  and  it  was  ordered  that  all  the  clergy  of  the 
province  of  Canterbury  should  be  summoned  to  give  an 
answer.  Peckham  accordingly  on  January  21,  1283,  alleging 
in  the  preamble  of  his  summons  this  order  (and  not,  apparently, 
acting  on  his  own  initiative),  summoned  to  a  clerical  assembly, 
to  be  held  in  London  at  Easter,  bishops,  abbots,  priors,  heads 
of  religious  houses,  deans  and  archdeacons.  He  further 
enjoined  the  bishops  each  to  assemble  the  clergy  of  his 
diocese,  and  expound  the  king's  demands,  so  that  from  each 
diocese  two  proctors  in  the  name  of  the  clergy,  and  from 
each  chapter  one,  should  be  sent  with  sufficient  instructions  and 
full  and  express  power  of  treating  and  consenting.^^^  The 
convocation  met  at  Easter ;  but  a  new  meeting,  in  the  same 
form,  had  to  be  summoned  for  Michaelmas  to  give  the  diocesan 
synods  more  time,  and  it  was  not  until  November  that  a  grant 
was  finally  made  to  the  king. 

Here  we  have  the  final  form  of  Convocation,  in  which  it 
afterwards  persisted,  with  the  two  proctors  from  each  diocese, 
and  one  from  each  chapter.  It  cannot  be  said  that  Peckham 
himself  was  to  any  extent  responsible  for  its  determination. 
He  had  indeed  summoned  proctors  of  chapters  to  Lambeth 
himself  in  1281  ;  but  the  summons  of  1282  proceeded  from  the 
king,  and  the  extension  of  that  summons  in  1283  to  include 
proctors  of  the  diocesan  clergy  was  due  to  the  action  of  the 
clergy  assembled  at  Northampton  under  the  royal  summons. 

'"  Wilkins,  ii.  91  ;  Stubbs,  Select  Charters^  p.  466.  Wilkins  thought  that 
the  two  bodies  of  the  York  assembly  were  treated  as  one,  and  summoned 
by  one  writ  (not,  as  in  the  Southern  province,  by  two  separate  writs). 
Certainly  the  king  directs  a  single  writ,  announcing  that  he  has  appointed 
Antony  Bek  and  the  Archbishop  of  York  to  act  on  his  behalf,  to  bishops, 
abbots,  priors,  chapters,  and  their  proctors,  knights,  freemen,  communi- 
ties, and  all  others,  as  if  they  were  one  body  (Wilkins,  ii.  93). 

^*  Wilkins,  ii.  93-5  ;  Stubbs,  Select  Charters,  pp.  466-7. 


68     CROWN  AND   CLERICAL   REPRESENTATION 

It  is  on  the  anvil  of  taxation  that  Convocation  was  finally 
beaten  into  shape.  The  form  of  1283  was  afterwards  treated 
as  authoritative,  and  was  regarded  as  a  canon,  though  it  was  no 
canon.^^*  It  applied  to  the  province  of  Canterbury :  the  con- 
vocation of  York,  as  in  the  assembly  at  Pomfret  in  1280, 
continued  to  have  two  proctors  from  each  archdeaconry.^^^ 
The  stamp  of  royal  confirmation  served  to  make  the  form  of 
1283  authoritative.  In  summoning  the  clergy  to  Parliament 
in  1294,  Edward  introduces  the  clause  which,  except  for  one 
or  two  verbal  alterations  made  in  1295,^^^  is  henceforth  regular. 
Each  bishop  must  attend,  *  premonishing  (in  1294 'summon- 
ing ')  the  dean  and  chapter  of  his  cathedral  church  and  the  arch- 
deacons and  all  the  clergy  of  his  diocese — causing  the  dean  and 
archdeacons  to  attend  in  their  proper  persons  and  the  chapter 
through  one,  the  clergy  through  two  fit  proctors  with  full  and 
sufficient  power.'  The  form  the  Church  had  adopted  for  its 
own  provincial  synod  is  used  by  the  king  for  the  inclusion  of 
the  Church  as  one  of  the  estates  of  the  realm  in  parliament. 

Here  the  development,  in  Aristotle's  phrase,  has  attained  its 
end.  We  ought  indeed  to  note  that  Edward's  plan  of  including 
the  Church  in  parliament  as  one  of  the  elements  of  a  united 
national  state  failed.  Within  the  next  forty  years  it  had  been 
practically  decided  that  the  Church,  as  such,  should  have  no 
lot  or  part  in  parliament.  Thus  what  had  been  attempted 
probably  in  1254,  certainly  in  1255,  again  in  1265,  in  1282,  in 
1294,  and  in  1295 — the  inclusion  of  the  clergy  in  general 
through  their  representatives  in  a  national  parliament — ceases 
after  the  reign  of  Edward  I  to  be  attempted  in  fact,  though  it 
is  done  in  legal  theory  to  this  very  day.  There  remains  only 
the  provincial  synod  (or  rather  the  synods  of  York  and 
Canterbury)  for  the  clergy  sitting  by  themselves.  This, 
however,  has  two  different  aspects.  There  are  sessions  of  the 
synod  summoned  by  the  archbishop  propria  motu  for  purely 
ecclesiastical  business,  '  the  extirpation  of  heresy,  the  reform 

"4  Stubbs,  Const,  Hist.  ii.  207.  ^^s  Stipra,  n.  116. 

"®  The  forms  of  summons  in  1294  and  1295  are  practically  identical. 
The  important  difference  is  that  Edward  in  1294  summoned  the  clergy  for 
a  different  date  than  that  fixed  for  the  laity  ;  he  treated  it  as  separate.  In 
and  after  1295  the  clergy  and  laity  are  summoned  for  the  same  time. 


VARIETIES   OF    THE   ENGLISH    SYNOD      69 

of  manners,  the  dealings  with  foreign  Churches  and  general 
councils.'  ^^"^  There  are  sessions  held  in  consequence  of  a 
request  or  a  command  issued  by  the  king  with  a  view  to  a  grant 
of  money,  when  the  synod  meets  at  about  the  same  time  as 
parliament,  and  should,  if  the  praemunientes  clause  were 
followed,  meet  at  the  same  place,  and  not  as  a  separate  synod, 
but  as  a  section  of  parliament.  Proceedings  in  sessions  of  the 
former  kind  were  independent  of  the  king ;  but  he  might 
nevertheless,  as  in  iij8i,  oppose  a  practical  veto.  On  the 
other  hand,  proceedings  in  sessions  of  the  latter  kind  were  not 
confined  to  the  voting  of  taxes,  and  might  be  devoted  in  part 
to  ecclesiastical  matters.  We  must  not  conceive  the  synod, 
even  in  its  quasi-parliamentary  aspect  as  a  tax-voting  body, 
as  an  adjunct  or  part  of  parliament.  It  is  not  summoned  by 
the  king  through  writs  addressed  to  the  bishops  :  it  is 
summoned  by  the  archbishop,  at  the  king's  request,  through 
letters  issued  to  the  bishops.  In  other  words,  it  is  still  a  pro- 
vincial synod,  an  assembly  of  the  Church  as  such,  and  no  part 
of  a  secular  parliament.^^^ 

Of  the  diocesan  councils  of  the  thirteenth  century  little 
need  here  be  said.  They  contained  the  whole  clergy  of  the 
diocese  {totus  clerus  dioeceseos)'^^^  meeting  as  a  primary 
assembly  ox  presbyterium.  In  them  were  issued  the  constitu- 
tions of  the  bishop  ;    and  as  the  pressure  of  taxation  grew 

'^'"  Stubbs,  Const  Hist.  iii.  331. 

'2^  If  we  apply  these  distinctions  to  the  period  which  we  have  con- 
sidered (practically  1226-95)  we  find  four  varieties:  (i)  the  provincial 
synod  proper,  which  may  be  convoked  to  meet  a  papal  demand,  as 
in  1226,  or,  more  according  to  its  essence,  to  regulate  the  state  of  the 
Church,  as  in  1273  and  1277,  or  in  1279  (^t  Reading)  and  1281  (at  Lam- 
beth) ;  (2)  the  provincial  synod  which  meets  to  answer  a  royal  demand 
for  taxes,  and  which  is  like  the  later  convocation  when  engaged  in  voting 
a  clerical  tenth  (cf.  the  second  meeting  of  1226,  the  meeting  of  1280, 
and  the  meetings  of  1283) ;  (3)  the  meeting  which  is  partly  a  provincial 
synod,  partly  a  part  of  parliament — the  former,  since  it  meets  either 
as  a  separate  body  from  the  lay  assembly,  as  in  1282,  or  at  a  separate 
time,  as  in  1 294 ;  the  latter,  since  it  is  convoked  by  royal  writ  (under  this 
head  may  also  be  placed  the  meetings  of  the  clergy  in  1254  (if  a  meeting 
took  place  then)  and  in  1255) ;  (4)  the  meeting  of  the  same  elements 
as  those  which  compose  a  provincial  synod,  but  as  part  of  parliament,  and 
not  as  a  provincial  synod  (e.  g.  in  1295).  We  may  add  legatine  councils 
of  the  whole  Church,  under  the  presidency  of  a  papal  legaius  a  latere 
(as  in  1237) ;  cf.  Stubbs,  Const.  Hist.  \\:  208. 

^^'  Wiikins,  ii.  25  (the  Synod  of  the  diocese  of  Norwich  at  Eyam). 

E3 


70  THE   DIOCESAN    SYNOD 

they,  like  the  shire-court,  were  consulted  about  its  imposition 
and  incidence.  In  1254,  when  proctors  begin  to  appear  on 
behalf  of  the  clergy  of  the  diocese  (or  as  in  1255  of  the  arch- 
deaconry), the  diocesan  clergy  were  possibly  thus  consulted, 
and  after  consultation  appointed  their  representatives.^^^  In 
1283  Peckham  definitely  instructs  the  bishops  to  assemble  the 
clergy  of  their  diocese,  and  expound  the  king's  demands,  that 
proctors  with  full  instructions  may  be  sent.^"^  At  York  in 
1280  the  archdeacons  are  directed  to  convoke  their  clergy 
and  expound  the  king's  demands,  so  that,  with  representatives 
of  their  archdeaconry,  they  may  come  to  give  an  answer  on 
behalf  of  the  community  of  all  the  archdeaconry.^^^  We  shall 
probably  not  be  wrong  in  concluding  that  the  diocesan  synod 
awoke  in  this  way  to  a  more  vigorous  life  under  the  pressure 
of  taxation,  and  that  its  meetings  became  far  more  frequent.^^^ 
On  the  whole  we  may  say  that  this  English  development  is 
unique.  Whatever  the  constitutional  development  of  the 
Spanish  Cortes,  the  provincial  synods  of  Spain  attain  no 
more  than  representation  of  chapters.  In  Germany  one  can 
hardly  discover  that  even  the  representation  of  chapters  is 
regular  in  provincial  synods ;  though  in  diocesan  synods, 
which  ought  to  be  attended  by  all  the  clergy  of  the  diocese, 
representatives  of  chapters  and  collegiate  churches  and  even 
of  the  diocesan  clergy  appear.  The  development  of  France 
approaches  nearest  to  that  of  England  ;  but  France  differs 
from  England.  The  French  provincial  synod  by  the  fourteenth 
century  includes  representatives  of  chapters ;  it  does  not 
include  representatives  of  the  diocesan  clergy.     The   Etats 

^^0  Supra,  pp.  55-6.  "^  Supra,  p.  67. 

^^2  I  take  it  that  the  reply  would  be  given  in  a  provincial  synod  of  the 
whole  of  the  province  of  York.  Stubbs  {Const.  Hist.  ii.  205)  speaks 
of  the  diocesan  synods  of  the  province  giving  their  *  several  consent '. 
But,  two  pages  further  on  (ibid.,  p.  207),  he  speaks  of  the  convocation  of 
the  province  of  York  in  this  connexion ;  and  though  it  is  true  Wilkins 
prints  only  the  response  of  the  clergy  of  the  diocese  of  York  (ii.  42),  1  take 
it  that  the  clergy  of  the  other  dioceses  also  responded  in  the  same  sense 
in  a  general  synod  along  with  the  clergy  of  York. 

^^'  CL  supra,  note  19.  Hauck,  op.  cit.,  v.  i.  180,  remarks  that  generally 
speaking  the  diocesan  synod  is  not  a  legislative  body  like  the  provincial 
synod :  the  bishop  enacts  constitutions  in  it,  but  not  by  its  consent,  and 
its  powers  of  consent  to  diocesan  taxation  are  very  slight.  This  would 
hardly  be  true  of  England  at  the  end  of  the  thirteenth  century. 


WHY  THE   ENGLISH   SYNOD   WAS   UNIQUE    71 

G^n^raux  include  representatives  of  convents  and  chapters, 
because  convents  and  chapters  stand  on  the  feudal  ladder ; 
they  do  not  include  representatives  of  the  diocesan  clergy. 
The  proctors  of  the  chapters  continue  to  sit  in  the  Etats 
Generaux :  the  representatives  of  our  clergy  withdraw  from 
Parliament.  To  what  shall  we  ascribe  this  difference  of 
development  ?  Why  does  the  English  synod  assume  a  more 
democratic  form  ?  And  why  has  it  a  more  regular  composition 
(for  that  of  the  continental  synod  seems  variable)  and  greater 
frequency  of  action  ?  One  naturally  turns  in  the  first  place  to 
geography.  The  distance  of  England  from  Rome  permits 
England  to  develop  on  its  own  line  :  the  primacy  of  Canter- 
bury makes  the  developments  which  take  place  in  the  province 
of  Canterbury  authoritative  for  the  whole  country.  Other 
countries  stood  closer  to  Rome :  other  countries  were  divided 
into  a  number  of  equal  and  independent  provinces.  Canter- 
bury was,  if  we  may  use  the  word,  more  '  national '  than 
Reims  or  Mainz  or  Toledo.^^*  In  the  second  place,  differences 
of  historical  development  were  active.  The  papal  pressure, 
which  helped  to  bring  about  the  representation  of  the  chapters 
and  inferior  clergy,  was  indeed  felt  elsewhere  than  in  England, 
though  England,  temporally  as  well  as  spiritually  subject  to 
papal  supremacy,  perhaps  felt  that  pressure  more  than  other 
countries.  The  financial  pressure  of  the  lay  state,  more  highly 
organized  in  England,  especially  on  its  financial  side,  than  in 
other  countries,  perhaps  constituted  a  greater  differentia.  On 
the  other  hand,  we  must  admit  that  the  French  monarchy, 
from  the  time  of  the  Second  Crusade,  imposed  tenths  on 
clerical  goods,  sometimes  with  and  sometimes  without  papal 
authorization.i^^  We  are  thus  driven  to  find  a  differentia  less 
in  the  imposition  of  taxation,  than  in  the  attitude  of  the 
country  towards  such  imposition.  Now  the  English  attitude 
in  the  thirteenth  century  is  already  something  like '  No  taxation 
without  representation ' :  the  French  attitude  was  not.  Already 

"*  I  do  not  mean  to  assert  that  the  English  Church  had  any  peculiar 
independence  of  Rome  in  e.  g.  legislation. 

^^^  Cf.  Viollet,  op.  ci/.,  ii.  402-6  ;  iii.  477-80.  It  is  noteworthy  that  the 
Avignonese  captivity  mide  it  easy  for  the  kings  to  get  papal  authorization, 
without  troubling  about  further  consent. 


7^    THE  REPRESENTATIVE   IDEA  IN   ENGLAND 

in  Magna  Carta  we  find  that  extraordinary  aids  and  scutages 
need  the  consent  of  Jf^^?///;;^  Concilium  \  already  in  i!za6  we 
find  the  chapters  voting  their  sixteenth  by  representatives  ; 
already  in  1240  we  find  Matthew  Paris  representing  the 
bishops  as  quoting  the  principle  that  what  touches  all  must 
be  approved  by  all.  Strong  in  the  strength  of  this  principle, 
the  clergy  claim  and  gain  representation.  The  first  taxation 
for  the  benefit  of  the  Crown  (apart  from  the  ransom  of 
Richard  I,  which  is  exceptional)  fell  on  clerical  revenues  in 
1226;  the  same  year  saw  the  chapters  represented  in  the 
assembly  that  granted  the  tax.  The  first  taxation  to  which 
the  shires  are  asked  to  give  their  consent  through  representative 
knights  falls  in  1254  ;  probably  in  that  same  year,  and  certainly 
in  1255,  representatives  of  the  diocesan  clergy  also  appear.  The 
representation  of  the  vigorous  local  life  of  the  shire  (after  all 
the  supreme  differentia  of  England  from  the  rest  of  Western 
Europe)  finds  its  counterpart  in,  and  lends  its  support  to,  the 
representation  of  the  clergy  of  archdeaconries  and  dioceses, 
who  are  bound  up  in  that  local  life — for  has  not  the  priest 
gone  along  with  the  reeve  and  representatives  of  the  vill  from 
early  days  ?  ^^^  Similarly,  the  representative  parliament  finds 
its  counterpart  in  the  representative  convocation ;  either 
supports  and  stiffens  the  other  ;  and  a  parliament  broad  in  its 
composition,  permanent  in  its  membership,  regular  in  its 
sessions,  postulates  a  convocation  as  broad,  as  permanent,  as 
regular.  Thus  we  should  find  in  the  strength  of  a  representa- 
tive principle  permeating  both  clergy  and  laity,  in  the  strength 
of  a  local  life  in  which  the  clergy  share  with  the  laity,  in  the 
strength  of  a  national  representative  system  expressing  that 
principle  and  drawing  vigour  from  that  local  life,  the  reasons 
for  the  nature  of  the  English  convocation. 

But  does  this  involve  the  consequence  that  clerical  repre- 
sentation is  drawn  from  and  modelled  upon  secular  representa- 
tion ?  Hardly.  We  would  rather  urge  that  the  clergy  are 
the  forerunners,  and  that  through  their  habits  of  organized 

^^'  Stubbs,  Select  Charters^  p.  86  (priest,  reeve,  and  six  villeins  of  each 
vill  on  the  Domesday  juries) ;  p.  105  (reeve,  priest,  and  four  better  men  of 
the  vill  attending  shire-court). 


CLERICAL  BASIS   OF  REPRESENTATION     73 

action  and  their  legal  ideas  of  procuration  they  lead  the 
movement  to  representation.  There  are  two  main  ideas 
underlying  the  English  representative  system  of  the  thirteenth 
century — indeed  from  the  thirteenth  to  the  nineteenth  century. 
In  the  first  place  the  representation  is  representation  of  com- 
munities. It  is  representation  not  of  geographical  consti- 
tuencies containing  some  thousands  of  electoral  units,  but  of 
organized  and  organic  communities,  that  have  a  real  and 
regular  life  of  their  own.  The  House  of  Commons  is  a  federa- 
tion of  these  communities  through  their  representatives :  it 
expresses  the  mediaeval  conception  ef  the  State  as  a  commu- 
nitas  commnnitatum.  In  the  second  place  the  representative 
is  a  full  representative.  He  binds  his  constituents.  He  is 
a  proxy  with  full  powers  of  attorney ;  there  is  no  room  for 
a  referendum  to  his  constituents.  The  knights  and  burgesses, 
says  Edward  in  1295,  shall  have  full  and  sufficient  powers  for 
themselves  and  their  communities^  and  business  shall  in  no 
wise  remain  undone  for  want  of  such  poweif.^^''^  Both  of  these 
ideas  are  at  home  with  the  clergy.  Their  chapters  are  real 
communities,  which  can  federate  in  a  joint  assembly,  and  are 
conscious  of  the  reasons  and  the  need  of  such  federation,  as 
early  as  1226.  With  the  nature  of  a  procuratorium  they  are 
well  acquainted  ;  their  chapters  and  monasteries  have  to  send 
proctors  to  Rome  as  a  matter  of  ordinary  legal  business,  and 
Rome  will  invite  proctors,  from  chapters  at  any  rate,  to  a 
general  Council  of  the  Church.  The  reinforcement  of  the 
baronage  by  shire  and  borough  representatives,  which  makes 
a  national  parliament,  finds  its  precedent  in  the  reinforcement 
of  the  episcopate  by  the  proctors  of  chapters.  Representation 
in  a  clerical  parliament  in  1226  is  nearly  thirty  years  prior  to 
representation  in  the  lay  assembly  of  1254.  We  may  repeat 
the  saying  of  Viollet:  *je  suppose  que  ces  reunions  eccl^- 
siastiques  ont  pu  contribuer  a  faciliter  le  d^veloppement  et  la 
regularisation  des  grandes  assemblees  civiles,  des  reunions 
d'etats.  .  .  .  En  effet,  le  premier  des  trois  ^tats,  le  clerg^,  se 
trouva,  du  premier  jour,  habitud  et  comme  rompu  a  ce  que 
nous  appellerions  aujourd'hui  les  usages  parlementaires. 
"^  Stubbs,  Select  Charters,  p.  486. 


74  CONVOCATION   AND   PARLIAMENT 

Circonstance  heureuse  qui  a  du  contribuer,  dans  I'Europe 
entiere,  sinon  a  former,  du  moins  a  regulariser  la  tenue  des 
etats.'^'"^^  Stubbs  has  remarked  that  the  mediaeval  procedure 
of  parliament  is  like  that  of  convocation.  There  is  the  same 
list  of  gravamina^  the  same  petition  for  remedy.^^^  And  so 
we  may  urge  that  the  Church  by  its  organization,  its  ideas,  its 
procedure,  was  a  model  and  a  precedent  for  that  parliamentary 
system,  which,  we  must  admit  and  indeed  urge,  in  turn  reacted 
on  the  Church ;  for  the  regular  parliamentary  system  of 
Convocation  would  have  been  impossible,  unless  it  had  found 
a  parallel  and  a  support  in  a  national  parliament,  and  unless 
it  had  been  part  of  a  whole  structure  of  society  which  was 
consonant  with  itself. 

<^nd  what  of  the  Dominicans  ?  Well,  they  are  a  part  of 
that  development  of  representation  in  the  General  Councils 
of  the  Church,  in  the  provincial  synod,  and  even  (in  Germany) 
in  the  diocesan  synod,  which  marks  the  thirteenth  century. 
In  that  development  they  appear  early,  as  early  as  1221  ;  of 
that  development  they  are  the  highest  expression,  for  the  use 
of  representation  was  regular  and  systematic  through  the 
whole  Order.  They  are  a  new  Order,  and  they  have  the 
attraction  of  novelty ;  they  are  an  Order  with  a  high  prestige, 
and  their  prestige  will  make  them  a  model.  They  found 
friends  for  themselves  in  great  men,  like  Stephen  Langton  and 
Simon  de  Montfort ;  and  great  men  can  give  a  vogue  to  ideas 
and  practices  which  would  otherwise  pass  unregarded,  making 
a  commonplace  original,  and  a  fantasy  a  practical  policy. 
They  had  communicated  their  organization  to  an  Order  which 

^^®  Viollet,  op.  cit.^  ii.  355- 

^'^  Const.  Hist.  iii.  1479.  '  ^^  is  not  improbable  that  this  process  was 
identical  with  that  by  which  in  the  discussions  of  the  ecclesiastical 
convocations  the  gravamina  of  individuals,  the  refonnanda  or  proposed 
remedies,  and  the  articuli  cleri  or  completed  representations  sent  up 
to  the  house  of  bishops  are  and  have  been  from  the  very  first  framed  and 
treated.  The.  gravamina  of  individual  members  of  convocation  answer 
to  the  initiatory  act  of  the  individual  member  in  the  commons,  and  the 
articuli  cleri  to  the  communes  petitiones.^  One  may  even  suggest  that 
the  two  Houses  of  Convocation  may  have  been  something  of  a  precedent 
for  the  two  Houses  of  Parliament,  and  have  helped  to  produce  that 
accidental  bicameral  system  which,  consecrated  by  time,  has  been 
defended  as  a  theoretical  ideal  and  imitated  as  a  political  model. 


THE   DOMINICAN    INFLUENCE  75 

had  a  greater  attraction,  and  certainly  a  far  greater  vogue, 
than  their  own  :  the  Franciscans  after  1239  reproduced  many 
of  the  features  of  the  statesmanship  of  St.  Dominic.^*^  These 
are  all  so  many  channels  of  indirect  influence.  Direct  influence 
can  hardly  be  proved.  That  Stephen  Langton  had  felt  their 
influence  when  he  admitted  representation  as  far  as  he  did  in 
1226  is  only  conjecture.  That  de  Montfort,  who  from  early 
years  had  been  connected  with  the  Order,  felt  and  expressed 
their  influence  is  equally  conjectural,  if  perhaps  a  little  more 
possible.  That  Kilwardby,  himself  a  Dominican  and  ex-prior 
of  the  English  province,  was  translating  their  ideas  into  practice 
in  1273  ^^^^  ^'^11  is,  at  the  least,  very  probable.  But  we  may 
content  ourselves  with  asserting  as  a  certainty,  that  .they  are 
the  highest  expression  of  the  development  of  the  representative 
principle  in  the  thirteenth-century  Church,  and  that  the  in- 
direct influence  of  that  expression  must  have  been  felt  in  the 
Church  and  to  some  extent  in  the  State. 

One  lesson  which  emerges  from  this  study  may  be  remarked 
in  conclusion.  The  study  of  the  institutional  development  of 
the  Middle  Ages  is  an  organic  whole.  We  cannot  isolate 
Church  and  State ;  not  only  do  they  develop  side  by  side, 
but  they  interact  in  their  development.  The  development  of 
representation  in  Church  and  State  must  not  be  figured  in  the 
mind  as  the  advance  of  two  parallel  lines  in  two  separate 
squares  ;  it  is  the  growth  of  one  idea  into  an  institution,  in 
that  one  and  single  resptiblica  Christiana  under  two  govern- 
ments (the  regmim  and  the  sacerdotiicm)  of  which  Dr.  Figgis 

"°  This,  of  course,  did  not  prevent  a  good  deal  of  friction  between  the 
two  Orders.  There  is  an  interesting  passage  of  arms,  illustrating  this 
rivalry,  in  VVilkins,  Cone.  ii.  109-10.  A  Dominican  at  Oxford  has  crossed 
without  leave  to  the  Franciscan  Order  at  Oxford,  and  the  prior  and 
friars  of  the  Dominican  house  have  excommunicated  the  Franciscans.  It 
is  a  canonical  rule  that  a  regular  may  go  from  a  lower  to  a  higher  Order 
(as  for  instance  to-day  one  may  leave  any  Order  for  the  Carthusian)  ;  and 
Peckham,  assuming  that  his  own  Order  is  higher  than  the  Dominican,  at 
once  is  np  in  arms.  Another  interesting,  if  fussy,  letter  is  directed  against 
the  provincial  prior  of  the  Dominicans,  who  had  said  that  Peckham's 
friends  did  not  incite  him  to  the  martyrdom  of  St.  Thomas  (p.  iii),  and 
divulged  a  private  conversation  !  This  letter  reminds  one  of  Trivet's 
description  of  Peckham  {Annales,  s.  a.  1279)  as  ordinis  zelator  prae- 
cipuiis,  ^sstus  affatusque  pompatici.  On  the  whole  matter  cf.  A.  G.  Little, 
Grey  Friars  in  Oxford^  pp.  T^^  sqq. 


76    UNITY  OF  CIVILIZATION    IN   MIDDLE  AGES 

has  taught  us  to  conceive.^^^  Further,  we  must  not  in  our 
insular  way  isolate  the  institutional  development  of  England 
from  that  of  continental  Europe.  We  have  learned  of  late  not 
to  contrast  English  with  continental  feudalism,  but  to  see  in 
both  the  same  plant  growing  under  somewhat  different  condi- 
tions. We  have  been  taught  by  recent  historians  to  think 
of  the  municipal  development  of  the  Middle  Ages  in  Western 
Europe  as  a  single  whole,  and  of  its  problems  as  not  to  be 
solved  country  by  country,  but  rather  to  be  treated  on  the  same 
lines  for  all  countries  taken  together.^*^  The  development 
of  representation  must  be  treated  in  the  same  way ;  it  is  a 
general  movement  in  all  Western  Europe  in  the  thirteenth 
century,  and  it  must  be  regarded  as  such  if  it  is  to  be  under- 
stood in  its  fullness. 

"*  Trans.  Roy.  Hist.  Soc,  191 1,  vol.  v,  pp.  63sqq.  Cf.  also  Dr.  Troeltsch, 
Die  Soziallehre  der  christlichen  Kirchen,  cap.  II,  esp.  p.  182. 

^*^  Cf.  M.  Pirenne,  Revue  Historique,  liii.  82  :  '  De  meme  qu'on  ne 
distingue  pas  une  f^odalit^  fran5aise  et  une  feodalit^  allemande,  de  m  me 
aussi  il  n'y  a  pas  lieu  d'dtablir  une  ligne  de  demarcation  entre  les  villas 
allemandes  et  les  villes  frangaises.'  As  M.  Pirenne  refuses  to  distinguish 
France  from  Germany,  so  the  English  historian  must  refuse  to  distinguish 
England  from  either. 


ADDENDA 

I.  p.  30.  The  vogue  of  the  Dominicans  in  England  during  the 
thirteenth  century  may  be  still  further  illustrated.  Father  Jarrett  has 
drawn  my  attention  to  the  fact  that  Hubert  de  Burgh,  the  justiciar 
of  Henry  HI,  left  land  in  Ireland  and"  his  London  house  to  the 
Order,  and  was  buried  in  one  of  its  chapels  (Matt.  Paris,  iv.  243). 
John  of  DarHngton,  one  of  the  most  striking  figures  in  the  early 
history  of  the  Order,  became  confessor  and  councillor  to  Henry  IH 
in  1256;  was  one  of  the  Committee  of  Twenty-four  in  1258;  and 
was  employed  in  political  negotiations  as  well  as  in  ecclesiastical 
business  afterwards.  A  considerable  scholar,  and  joint  author  with 
Richard  of  Stavensby  and  Hugh  of  Croydon  of  the  English  Con- 
cordances (Qu^tif  and  Echard,  Scriptores  Ord.  Praed.  i.  209),  he 
was  Archbishop  of  Dublin  when  he  died  in  1284  (see  Trivet,  Annales, 
s.a.  1276,  1279, 1284).  The  fact  that  Dominican  friars  were  as  much 
the  favourites  of  men  like  Stephen  Langton  and  Hubert  de  Burgh 
as  of  Henry  IH  seems  to  show  that  they  did  not  belong  to  one  side 
in  politics  (supra^  p.  58,  n.  92),  but  had  friends  equally  in  both  camps. 
With  the  English  episcopate  they  were  in  especially  close  connexion. 
Edmund  Rich,  Archbishop  of  Canterbury,  had  continually  members 
of  the  Order  in  his  company,  and  had  been  the  companion  of  the 
Dominican  Robert  Bacon  in  the  schools  (Trivet,  s.a.  1 240) ;  Richard, 
Bishop  of  Chichester,  had  a  Dominican  confessor  {ibid.,  s.a.  1252). 
These  instances  belong  to  the  reign  of  Henry  IH  ;  but  the  Dominicans 
did  not  cease  to  flourish  under  Edward  I.  A  story  in  Trivet's  Annals 
(s.a.  1 281)  shows  Hugh  of  Manchester,  provincial  prior  of  the  Order, 
in  intimate  contact  with  the  king;  and  in  1294  Hugh  was  sent  by 
Edward  I  on  a  political  mission  to  France  along  with  a  Franciscan 
friar.  In  1286  Trivet  records  the  presence  both  of  Edward  I  and  of 
Philip  IV  at  a  meeting  of  the  general  chapter  of  the  Order  at  Paris. 

The  main  authority  for  the  Dominicans  in  England  in  the  thirteenth 
century  is  Trivet,  himself  a  Dominican.  Details  of  the  lives  and 
writings  of  particular  friars  are  given  in  Qu^tif  and  Echard's  Scriptores 
(see  especially  under  the  year  1228,  on  John  of  St.  Giles;  1248,  on 


78  ADDENDA 

Bacon  and  Fishacre ;  1 248,  on  Mauclerk  ;  1279,  o"  Kilwardby ;  1284, 
on  John  of  Darlington;  1290,  on  Claypole;  and  1298,  on  William 
of  Hutton,  Archbishop  of  Dublin). 

II.  p.  61.  It  is  a  question  deserving  of  consideration,  how  far 
clerical  machinery  was  ever  adopted  and  utilized  for  political  and 
secular  purposes  during  the  Middle  Ages.  The  constitutional 
novelties  which  occur  in  the  years  1258-65  seem  certainly  to  be 
bas^d  in  some  cases  on  ecclesiastical  precedents,  such  as  would 
readily  offer  themselves  to  de  Montfort  and  his  clerical  colleagues. 
The  employment,  for  instance,  of  electors  to  elect  an  executive  com- 
mittee, which  we  find  both  in  the  Provisions  of  Oxford  and  in  the 
Forma  Regiminis^  seems  to  me  a  direct  imitation  of  the  plan  adopted 
by  the  Dominican  Order  (and  on  its  analogy  by  the  Franciscan ;  see 
supra ^  p.  23,  n,  38)  of  electing  definitores  per  disquisitionem  of  three 
nominators.  In  fact  de  Montfort  in  the  Forma  Regiminis  employs 
just  the  same  number  of  nominators  (cf.  Stubbs,  Select  Charters, 
p.  413,  with  Constit.  Fr.  Fraed.,  Paris,  1886,  pp.  419-20).  I  would 
almost  venture  to  suggest  that  the  use  of  the  committees  themselves, 
which  is  so  marked  a  feature  of  the  years  1258-65,  is  the  result  of 
imitation  of  the  ecclesiastical  institution  of  definitores. 

III.  p.  64.  Pere  Mandonnet  suggests  to  me  that  Kilwardby,  who 
was  not  a  Thomist,  was  recalled  owing  to  the  representations  made 
at  Rome  by  the  Thomist  party.  Certainly  the  division  between  the 
Thomists  and  the  other  body  of  opinion  to  which  Kilwardby 
belonged  (see  supra,  p.  30)  led  to  controversy  in  the  Order.  On 
this  hypothesis  the  Pope's  motive  in  recalling  Kilwardby  would  be 
theological,  and  not,  as  Professor  Tout  suggests,  political. 


INDEX 


Alexander  III :  20. 

Alexander  IV  :  56. 

Aquinas  :  29,  30. 

Aragon  :  20°^!,  43°  ^e   5q^ 

Archbishops :  their  decline  of  power  in 
1 2th  century,  32. 

Archdeaconries :  represented  by  proc- 
tors, 54. 

Archdeacons:  regarded  as  representa- 
tive, 42°<6,  54,  56-7. 

Aristocracy :  characteristic  of  Pre- 
montr^,  12, 17;  anoong Cistercians,  17. 

Aristotle  :  30. 

Augustine  :  the  '  rule '  of  St.  Augustine, 
J2ni2  .  his  theology,  30. 

B 

Bacon  (Robert)  :  30. 
Barons'  War  :  59  sqq. 
Bemont  (cited)  :  60. 
Benedictines  :  24  °  *°,  33  °  12 
Berkshire  rectors :  36  °  '^,  54  °  '^^,  57. 
Bishops :    their    decline    of    power    in 

1 2th  century,  32  ;   their  relations  to 

cathedral  chapters,  36-7. 
Bologna:  12,  13,  14 "i^,  15° 20^  28. 
Boniface  (Archbishop  of  Canterbury)  : 

29.  54»  55>  56,61. 
Bourges  (Council  of  1225)  :  34 sq.,  36, 

45'  46,  47. 
Breaute  (Fawkes  de)  :  45. 
Bulls:     Omne    datum    optimum^    20; 

Supra  muros  Jerusalem^  34,  45. 


Canons  :  (i)  of  cathedral  chapters,  36, 
37-8  (see  also  Chapters)  ;  (2)  canons 
regular,  11,  18. 

Canterbury  :  28.  (For  archbishops  see 
Langton,  &c.  ;  for  synod  of  province 
of  Canterbury  see  Convocation^ 

Castile :  19,  26. 

Centralization :  in  the  Dominican 
Order,  11;  in  the  religious  Orders 
generally,  24. 

Chapters:  I.  of  religious  Orders:  {a) 
Chapters  of  Dominicans  :  (i )  Chapter 
general,  12,  13,  14,  15,16,  i8,23°37^ 
29,  6i°i°2.  (^2)  provincial  chapters, 


13,  14,  15.  {b)  Chapters  of  Fran- 
ciscans :  (i)  Chapter  general  (com- 
posed of  all  brethren,  to  122 1  ;  of 
ministi-i,  1221-3;  of  ministri  and 
custodes,  1223-30;  of  ministri  and 
representative  fz«/£»^^j,  1230-9;  with 
discreti  and  dejinitores,  after  1239), 
21  sqq.  ;  (2)  provincial  chapters,  22, 
23°^^,  43.  (0  Chapters  of  Hospi- 
tallers, 19,  20.  {d)  Chapters  of 
Templars,  20.  (<?)  Chapters  of  Prae- 
monstratensians,  12, 13°!!.  {f)  Chap- 
ters of  Benedictines,  24  "  *^,  33  °  ^2. 
ig)  Chapters  of  Cluniacs,  25°*!. 
{h)  Chapters  of  Cistercians,  12°^®. 

—  II.  of  cathedrals.  Chapters  repre- 
sented in  Spanish  Cortes,  26  ;  act  as 
presbyteritim,  32;  represented  in  great 
councils  of  Church,  32-3 ;  at  Bourges, 
34-6 ;  history  of  chapters,  35-6  : 
their  relation  to  bishop,  36-7  ;  repre- 
sented in  French  provincial  synods, 
37  sqq. ;  represented  in  States  General, 
40  ;  represented  in  convocation,  42 
sqq.  ;  the  Chapter  of  Salisbury, 
48  sqq. 

Church  courts  :  66. 

Circariae :  13,  14. 

Circatores '.   13,  16,  24. 

Cistercians:  12,  i6"2i^  17^  24,  33"'2^ 

Clergy :  their  influence  on  political 
development,  52,  73-4  (see  also 
Diocesan). 

Cluniacs:  15 °i',  17,  24,  25°*!. 

Cologne  (province  of):  34° ^^  38 °*^ 
41- 

Commanderies  (of  Hospitallers)  :  19. 

Communes :  37. 

Community:  conception  of  communi- 
tas,  27  ;  parliament  a  union  of  com- 
munitates,  73. 

Concordances :  30. 

Convents:  Dominican  convents,  14, 
29  °  ^1 ;  *  conventus '  of  Hospitallers, 
19,  20. 

Conversi'.  12. 

Convocation  (see  also  Synod) :  25,  35, 


36 


39,  41,  42  sqq.;   importance 


of  1226  in   history    of  convocation, 
45   sqq,    esp.    51;     development    of 


8o 


INDEX 


convocation  1254-8,  55-9;  under 
Kilwardby,  61-4  ;  '  model'  convoca- 
tion (1283),  67  ;  its  different  aspects, 
68-9 ;  its  relations  to  parliament, 
68-9,  72-4;  the  English  Convocation 
compared  with  continental  synods, 
70  sqq. 

Cortes :  26,  70. 

Council  (see  Synod) :  great  councils  of 
13th  century,  32  (see  also  Lateran, 
Lyons,   Vienne),     Legatine    council, 

34- 

Crusade  :  plea  for  taxation,  44  ;  twen- 
tieth for  a  Crusade  in  1219,  49-50; 
Crusades  a  clerical  institution,  53 : 
taxes  for  Crusades,  57  °^,  63. 

Custodes  (Franciscan) :  22,  23,  43. 

D 

Damiani :  27. 

Dean  (of  chapter) :  42  (see  Chapter,  1I\ 

Definitores  (executive  committee) :  12°^, 

13,  H''^^  15-16,  20,  23,  24,  25'»*\ 

26''«. 

Democracy  :  characteristic  of  Domini- 
can Order,  i6°^*,  17  ;  in  early  Fran- 
ciscan Order,  24. 

Diocesan  clergy  :  position  in  England, 
36°^^,  39  ;  included  in  Convocation, 
43.  5i*'*''S  54.  55»  56,  58,  63-4, 
69-70. 

Discipline  (of  Dominicans)  :  1 1-12. 

DiscretMS  (Franciscan  representative)  : 

23"*^  43. 

Dispensation  (among  Dominicans)  :  12. 

Dominic,  St.:  his  personality,  9-10; 
statesmanship,  9,  21,  25  ;  originality 
as  organizer,  1 2  ;  at  Bologna  (12  20-1 ), 
12,  13;  borrows  from  Praemonstra- 
tensians,  i5  ;  at  Palencia  and  at  Osma, 
19,  26  ;  connected  with  S.  France, 
27-8  ;  friend  of  elder  de  Montfort, 
28,  60;  St.  Dominic  and  learning, 
30. 

Dominicans  :  in  learning  and  organiza- 
tion models  for  Franciscans,  10 ;  ar- 
rival in  England,  10 ;  compared  with 
Praemonstratensians  (their  model), 
11-13;  discipline  relaxed  by  dis- 
pensation for  sake  of  study  and 
preaching,  their  end,  11-12;  two 
discrepant  elements  in  Order,  12"*^; 
organization,  13-17;  its  features 
(democratic,  representative,  definite), 
17-18,27;  their  Third  Order,  17 '^24. 
their  wide  extension,  i8''26.  how 
far  their  organization  original,  18;  its 
relation  to  that  of  Hospitallers,  18-20, 
of  Templars,  20-21,  and  of  Francis- 
cans, 21-4;  imitated  by  Franciscans, 


23;  their  vogue,  25;  influence  in 
England,  28-9,  74 ;  contribution  to 
learning,  29-30  ;  connexion  with 
Grosseteste,  29  ;  influence  on  Convo- 
cation, 43,  47,  51,  58,  74-5  ;  quarrels 
with  University  of  Paris,  58;  on 
royalist  side  in  Barons'  War?  59°^^; 
relations  with  de  Montfort,  60  ;  their 
part  in  development  of  representation, 
74-j; :  disputes  with  Franciscans, 
750140. 


Eadmer  (cited)  :  31. 

Edward  I:  29,  34,  35,  42,  44,  59,  61, 
62  sqq.,  73.  (His  conception  of  rela- 
tion of  Church  and  State,  62,  65.) 

Eleanor  (of  Castile)  :  29,  64°"o. 

Election:  among  Dominicans,  15, 16°^^, 
18. 

Elias:  22-3. 

England :  the  Dominicans  in  England, 
10,  28-30. 

English  Church:  its  councils,  31;  its 
diocesan  clergy  (see  Diocesan) ;  its 
position  under  Henry  III,  44 ;  under 
Edward  I,  62, 65  ;  causes  of  its  differ- 
ence from  continental  Church,  71  sqq. 


Figgis  (cited) :  75. 

Fishacre  (or  Fitzacre)  :  30. 

Forma  Regwiinis  :  60,  61. 

France :  representation  of  towns  in 
S.  France,  26-7 ;  representation  of 
French  chapters,  34-41  ;  comparison 
of  French  Church  with  English, 
70  sqq. 

Francis,  St. :  his  personality,  9  ;  his  aver- 
sion to  organization,  21-2. 

Franciscans :  debtors  to  Dominicans, 
10 ;  arrival  in  England,  10 ;  con- 
trasted with  Dominicans,  16  "^i; 
democratic  element  in  their  Order, 
17;  their  Third  Order,  17  "24.  Do- 
minicans did  not  borrow  from  Fran- 
ciscans, 18  (cf.  10°*);  Franciscan 
organization,  21-4  ;  how  far  based  on 
Dominican,  23,  43,  75  ;  Franciscans 
and  Grosseteste,  29  ;  their  provincial 
chapters,  43 ;  connected  with  de 
Montfort,  60  ;  disputes  with  Domini- 
cans, 75  "  1*0. 

Frederic  U  :  33,  57. 


Gascony:  58,  60. 

Germany :   synods  of  German  Church, 
33-4;  35;  40-1.  70- 


INDEX 


8i 


Gilbert  of  Freynet :  lo,  13,28. 

Grand  Master  :  of  Hospitallers,  19-20 ; 

of  Templars,  20. 
Gratian  (cited) :  31. 
Gravamina:  56,  74. 
Gregory  IX:  23,  44,  57''°89^  90. 
Gregory  X  :  33,  61,  62. 
Gregory  XI :  39. 
Grosseteste  :  28-9,  30,  60. 

H 
Hauck  (cited) :  10,  33. 
Henry  II :  53. 
Henry   III:    44,   45,   47,   48,   54,   55, 

58-^65. 
Holborn   (Dominican   convent) :    28-9 

(cf.  is^^o). 

Honorius  III :  44  sqq. 

Hospitallers :  divided  into  pays,  14 ; 
their  organization  and  its  relation  to 
that  of  the  Dominicans,  18-20;  re- 
presentative principle  in  their  Order, 
19-20,  27. 

Humbert  (fifth  Master- General  of  the 
Dominicans):  14°",  16°". 

I 
Innocent  III :  32,  36. 
Innocent  IV  :  33,  56,  58  ^  ^o. 
Inquisition  :  9  °  2. 


Jacobins  (name  of  Dominicans  at  Paris) : 

13- 
John  (King)  :  42,  51. 
John  of  Darlington  :  30,  59  «  ^^^ 
John  of  St.  Giles :  29,  30. 
Jordan     (second    Master- General     of 

Dominicans) :  28. 
Jury:  52,53- 

K 

Kilwardby :  provincial  prior  of  Domi- 
nicans, 29 ;  his  writings,  30 ;  Arch- 
bishop of  Canterbury,  42  ;  summons 
representatives  to  Convocation,  42-3 ; 
a  royalist?  59°^^;  his  activity  as 
archbishop,  61-4,  75. 

Knights  (in  parliament)  :  55. 


Labour :    not    exacted    by  Dominican 

rule,  12. 
Lambeth  :  council  of  1 281,  66. 
Langton  :  25,  28,  29,  42,  43,  45-54,  59, 

74-5- 
Lateran    (Fourth    Lateran     Council) : 

32-3,35,67"^. 
Laurence :  28. 


Learning:  Dominicans  and  learning, 
10 ;  their  contribution  to  English 
learning,  29,  30. 

Leicester  (Dominican  convent)  :  28. 

Leon  :  19,  26. 

Lewes  {Song of):  24,  27,  60-1. 

Lyons:  Council  of  1245,32-3,  58°^''; 
Council  of  1274,  62-3. 

M 
Magna  Carta  :  28,  64-5,  72. 
Majority:  rule  of  majority,  18,  49,  51, 

53- 

Mandonnet  (cited) :  18,  25. 

Marsh  (Adam  de) :  60. 

Mast^-General  (see  Dominic,  Jordan, 
Raymond,  Humbert) :  his  position 
in  Dominican  Order,  14,  17;  how 
elected,  14  ;  controlled  by  definitores, 
14°  15,  16;  relation  to  provincial 
prior,  16,  17. 

Maurice  :  30. 

Metropolitan:  31,  33. 

Military  Orders:  18  sqq.,  24,  28  (see 
Hospitallers  and  Templars). 

Ministri  (Franciscan)  :  relation  of 
ministri  to  friars  under  regula  of 
1221,  22;  general  minister  oxid  pro- 
vincial wemV/r?,  22  ;  election  of  general 
minister,  22,  23  "^s.  yg  position, 
1223-39,  22-3;  change  in  1239-40, 
24. 

Montfort :  (i)  the  elder  Simon  de  Mont- 
fort,  27,  28;  (2)  the  younger,  27,  28, 

29,  58,  59  sqq.,  74-5- 
Mortmain :  64-5. 

N 
Narbonne  (province) :  38-9. 
Northampton :  parliament  of  1 2  82, 66-7. 


Orders  (religious)  :  tendency  to  centrali- 
zation in  13th  century,  24;  progressive 
force  in  Church,  25,  52  (see  Military 
Orders,  Dominicans,  Sec), 

Osma :  9,  26. 

Otto  :  45,  46,  54. 

Oxford :  10,  28-30,  51-2,  58. 


Palencia :  19. 

Papacy :  checks  provincial  synod  in 
1 2th  century,  31  ;  attitude  to  cathedral 
chapters,  36  ;  its  pressure  responsible 
for  growth  of  representation,  34,  37, 
57 ;  pressure  on  England  under 
Henry  III,  44,  57-8,  71 ;  pressure 
relaxed,  62. 


82 


INDEX 


Paris  (University)  :  28,  58. 

Parliament:  of  1254,  55,  73;  of  1258, 
29,  57' 58;  of  1265,  59-61;  of  1 275, 
63;  of  1282,66-7  ;  of  1294  and  1295, 
68.  Relations  of  Parliament  to  Con- 
vocation, 69,  72-4. 

Pays  (of  Hospitallers)  :  14,  20°  29. 

Peckham  :  39, 43,  59  "  ^\  61, 62,  64  sqq., 

75. 

Pirenne  (cited) :  76. 

Poverty  :  a  native  feature  of  the  Domi- 
nican Order,  10. 

Praeceptor:  of  Hospitallers,  19;  of 
Templars,  20. 

Praemonstratensians :  11-13, 14,  16, 17, 
24. 

Praemunientes  clause  :  32  °',  68,  69. 

Preachers:  'general'  preachers,  15. 
(For  Friars  Preachers  see  Domini- 
cans^ 

Preaching  :  the  final  aim  of  the  Domi- 
nicans, 1 1 -1 2. 

Precedent  (sense  of)  :  48,  49,  50. 

Presbyterium  (see  Synod  (3)):  31°*, 
36,  69. 

Priors :  of  Dominican  provinces,  1 3, 
14;  of  convents,  14;  provincial  priors 
and  dejinitores  of  province,  15  ;  they 
act  as  dejinitores  of  general  chapter 
every  third  year,  15-16  ;  their  position 
in  their  province,  16-17. 

Proctor :  proctors  of  chapters  at 
Bourges,  34;  in  England  in  1226,  35  ; 
in  French  Church  generally,  37  sqq. ; 
proctors  of  chapters  in  convocation, 
42  sqq. ;  proctors  of  diocesan  clergy 
also,  55.  Conception  of  representative 
as  proctor  (and  not  delegate),  53,  73. 

Procuradores  (in  Spain)  :  26. 

Procuratorium  :  39  °  ^9^  g^^  y^. 

Prohibitions :  66. 

Promovedores :  26°*'. 

Province  :  provinces  of  Dominicans,  14, 
15°  18,  20°  29. 


Raymond  (of  Pennaforte,  third  Master- 
General  of  the  Dominicans)  :  14  °  1*. 

Reading:  council  of  1279,  ^4* 

Regula:  regula  non  bullata  of  1221, 
21-2,  24;  regula  of  1223,  22. 

Reims  :  representation  of  chapters  in 
the  province  of,  37  sqq.,  71. 

Representation :  among  the  Dominicans, 
14, 15,  i6°2ij  25 ;  their  representatives 
not  delegates,  18;  principle  of  repre- 
sentative government  among  Hospi- 
tallers, 19,  but  no  representation 
proper,  20 ;  representation  among 
Franciscans    (after    1239),     23;    in 


Spain  and  S.  France,  26-7 ;  idea 
cherished  by  Church,  27;  chapters 
represented  in  great  councils  of 
Church,  32-3;  in  German  synods, 
34°";  at  Bourges  (1225),  34-5  ;  in 
French  and  other  continental  Churches, 
37-41.  Representation  in  the  English 
Convocation,  42  sqq. ;  Langton  and 
representation,  46  ;  Salisbury  chapter 
and  representation,  48  sqq. ;  impor- 
tance of  the  year  1226  in  this  respect, 
51 ;  influence  of  clergy  in  promoting 
the  representative  idea,  53.  Repre- 
sentation of  two  kinds,  53;  its 
connexion  with  taxation  (see  under 
taxation).  De  Montfort  and  repre- 
sentation, 60-1  ;  Kilwardby,  63  ; 
final  form  of  clerical  representation 
under  Peckham,  67.  "Why  representa- 
tion developed  more  in  English 
Church  than  elsewhere,  70-2 ;  its 
character  in  England,  73  ;  it  must  be 
studied  as  one  whole  ia)  in  Church 
and  State,  and  {p)  for  all  Western 
Europe,  76. 

Romanus :  34,  45. 

Rudolf  of  Habsburg:  62. 

Rustand :  56. 


Sack  (Friars  of):  25°". 
St.  Albans:  meeting  of  1213  at,  52, 
61  n  102. 

St.  Edward's  School :  28,  30. 

Saladin  tithe :  50. 

Salisbury :   proceedings  of  chapter,  46 

sqq-,  55- 
Scotland  :  representation  in  Church  of. 

Sentences :  29,  30. 

Shire  :  importance  in  England  of,  72. 

Sicily :  58,  60. 

Socius :  elected  representative  among 
Dominicans,  15,  42,  43. 

Sovereignty:  27. 

Spain:  Hospitallers  in,  18-19;  Templars 
in,  20°^i.  Representation  in  Cortes, 
26,  70  ;  in  provincial  synods,  40,  41, 
70. 

Spiritualities :  taxation  of,  42,  50-1,  65, 
67,  72. 

Stabihtas'.  not  exacted  among  Domi- 
nicans, II. 

States  General :  40,  71. 

Stubbs  (cited) :  52-3,  60,  69,  74. 

Studium  generale '.  29  "^i. 

Study :  its  importance  among  the  Do' 
minicans,  10,  11,  12  ;  its  organization 
29**". 

Synods:    (i)  national,   32,  34°i«,  35 


0 


INDEX 


83 


37;  (2)  provincial  (see  Convocation)  ; 
attendance  of  laity  before  12th  cen- 
tury, 31 ;  decline  in  power,  32;  re- 
vived in  13th  century,  32-3;  their 
history  in  France,  37  sqq.,  and  in 
England,  42  sqq. ;  English  provincial 
synod  compared  with  French,  70  sqq. ; 
(3)  diocesan  (see  Presbyterium),  32, 
33,  34°^°»36,  39>69-70- 


Taxation  {%ee  Spiritualities  and  Tithes) : 
produces  representation  at  Bourges, 
34;  in  England,  44;  its  part  in  the 
developments  of  1226,  50-1,  and  of 
1254-8,  57-8;  its  influence  on  the 
growth  of  convocation,  68  ;  taxation 
in  France  and  England,  71 ;  English 
demand  that  representation  should 
accompany  taxation,  71-2. 

Templars:  20,  21,41. 

Testamentum  (of  St.  Francis)  :  22, 

Third  Order:  i7'»2^ 

Tithes :  for  Crusade,  56,  57,  58,  62-3, 
71. 


Toledo  :  40,  41,  71. 

Tours :  40. 

Towns  :  representation  of,  in  Spain  and 

S.  France,  26-7;  in  England,  59  sqq., 

76. 

U 
Ulpian  (cited)  :  27. 
Universidades :  in  Spain,  26. 
Universities :  40  (see  Oxford  2ixA  Paris). 


Vienne  :  Council  of,  in  131 1,  41. 

Viollet  (cited) :  52,  73. 
Visitatores :  16,  24. 

W 

William :  archbishop  of  Dublin,  30. 


York  :  convocation  of  province  of,  43  ; 
model  convocation  of  1280,  43°**', 
65,  68,  70;  parliament  of  1282  at 
York,  66. 


OXFORD  :   HORACE  HART  M.A. 
TRINTeX  TQfjT'H^  UNIVERSITY 


6-r 


RETURN  TO  the  circulation  desk  of  any 
University  of  California  Library 
or  to  the 

NORTHERN  REGIONAL  LIBRARY  FACILITY 
BIdg.  400,  Richnnond  Field  Station 
University  of  California 
Richmond,  CA  94804-4698 


ALL  BOOKS  MAY  BE  RECALLED  AFTER  7  DAYS 
2-month  loans  may  be  renewed  by  calling  r.    . 

(415)642-6233                                                                  jote 
1-year  loans  may  be  recharged  by  bringing  books      

to  NRLF  I 

Renewals  and  recharges  may  be  made  4  days 

prior  to  due  date 


DUE  AS  STAMPED  BELOW 

NOV  5    1988 


i 


FOI 


;n! 


CALIFORNIA,  BERKELEY 
:LEY,  CA  94720 


'r^C^Xr^yr- 


illlilff» 


-T- 


i 


UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA  LIBRARY 


